Institutes & Facilities
In a nutshell
Geneva’s institutions fall into two families: laboratories and universities that produce knowledge, and international organisations that turn it into shared rules. The cards below give one short description of each, with a link to its official website.
Meyrin and the Franco-Swiss border
CERN
Europe’s laboratory for particle physics, founded in 1954, with two main sites near the border. The World Wide Web was proposed here in 1989.
Official websiteGeneva
University of Geneva
Its astronomers announced 51 Pegasi b in 1995, the first planet found around a sun-like star; Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Official websiteGeneva
World Health Organization (WHO)
The United Nations agency for health. Its constitution came into force in 1948, and the First World Health Assembly decided to place its headquarters in Geneva.
Official websiteGeneva
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Founded in 1863. Its mandate comes from the Geneva Conventions and the Statutes of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement: protection and assistance for people affected by armed conflict, and the promotion of international humanitarian law.
Official websiteGeneva
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
Began work in 1947 with its headquarters in Geneva. Its members are national standards bodies, one per country.
Official websiteGeneva
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
Founded in London in 1906 with Lord Kelvin as its first president; its central office moved to Geneva in 1948.
Official websiteGeneva
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Created in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, today the UN agency for digital technologies; in Geneva since 1948.
Official websitePalais des Nations, Ariana Park
United Nations Office at Geneva
Housed in the former headquarters of the League of Nations. Guided tours are available by booking.
Official websiteGeneva
Conservatory and Botanical Garden of Geneva
Heir to the permanent botanical garden created in 1817 under Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle. Its herbarium holds more than six million specimens.
Official websiteGeneva
Poinçon de Genève (TIMELAB)
The office that awards the Geneva Seal, delegated by the State of Geneva to TIMELAB, the Geneva laboratory of horology and microengineering.
Official websiteSauverny, near Versoix
Geneva Observatory (Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva)
Founded in 1772 by Jacques-André Mallet and at Sauverny since 1966. It led the consortium that built the HARPS spectrograph and hosts the Science Operations Centre of the CHEOPS space mission.
Official websiteGeneva
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
The United Nations agency for weather, climate and water. Its Convention entered into force on 23 March 1950; it became a UN specialised agency in 1951.
Official websiteSecretariat in Geneva, hosted by WMO
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Set up in 1988 by WMO and the UN Environment Programme to assess the scientific literature on climate change; it does not carry out its own research.
Official websiteGeneva
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Created by a convention signed in Stockholm in 1967, in force since 1970, and a UN specialised agency since 1974. It administers the Patent Cooperation Treaty; patents themselves are granted by national and regional offices.
Official websiteGeneva
Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA)
A foundation established in 2019 by the Swiss federal government, the Canton of Geneva and the City of Geneva to anticipate emerging scientific discoveries and turn them into action for society.
Official website
Sources
- CERN, Our history, checked 29 October 2026
- CERN, The birth of the Web, checked 29 October 2026
- University of Geneva, Physics Section, The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, checked 29 October 2026
- World Health Organization, History of WHO, checked 29 October 2026
- World Health Organization, WHO eManual: WHO headquarters in Geneva, checked 29 October 2026
- ICRC, Our mandate and mission, checked 29 October 2026
- Swiss Association for Standardization (SNV), 100 years of SNV: the decade 1940–1950, checked 29 October 2026
- IEC, How and why the IEC was started, checked 29 October 2026
- ITU, The 1865 International Telegraph Conference, checked 29 October 2026
- ITU, Overview of ITU’s history, checked 29 October 2026
- United Nations Office at Geneva, Visiting UN Geneva, checked 29 October 2026
- Ville de Genève, La botanique genevoise, une tradition vieille de plus de 300 ans, checked 29 October 2026
- Poinçon de Genève, State guarantee, checked 29 October 2026
- University of Geneva, Department of Astronomy, L’Observatoire de Genève de 1772 à aujourd’hui, checked 29 October 2026
- ESO, Press release eso0308 (February 2003): first light of the HARPS spectrograph at La Silla, checked 29 October 2026
- European Space Agency, Cheops: launch and operations, checked 29 October 2026
- World Meteorological Organization, WMO anniversaries: dates and facts, checked 29 October 2026
- IPCC, Fact sheet: What is the IPCC?, checked 29 October 2026
- WIPO, Summary of the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (1967), checked 29 October 2026
- WIPO, Introduction to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), checked 29 October 2026
- GESDA, Our mission, checked 29 October 2026