Credit Suisse has decided to sponsor a professorship in robotics at ETH Zurich. The bank hopes that the research conducted at the university in future can help its asset management make the right investment decisions.

Credit Suisse Asset Management has awarded 7 million Swiss francs ($7 million) in a sponsorship agreement with the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. The money will go towards installing a new professorship and will be used over a ten-year period.

The institute has eight independent laboratories that work on minute robotic components used in bio medical practice or autonomous micro aircraft. Credit Suisse hopes the research one day will help its asset management to make well informed investment decisions.

Scientific Progress Key to Success

Technological progress has made it tougher for companies such as Credit Suisse to remain a step ahead with its established information gathering procedures. Hence the idea to create a direct link to researchers in a bid to get advance notice on scientific progress.

Credit Suisse has also a joint venture with the university under the name of Simag, which stands for Systematic Investment Management. Simag is based on findings from physics, self-organizing systems, deep learning and behavioral finance.

The spin-off working with the research conducted by Didier Sornette, a physics professor at ETH Zurich. Credit Suisse also signed up David Solo, an ex-CEO of GAM and Christian Gast, the former head of Ishares Switzerland.

Basel Blockchain Professorship

Renaissance Technologies is proof for how successful the scientific approach to investing can be. The U.S.-based hedge fund relies on mathematicians, physicists and other scientists and has been so successful that the majority of its assets under management now belong to employees of the firm.

The professorship in Zurich and the Simag joint venture are not the only connections that Switzerland’s second-largest bank has among academic circles of course. It also sponsors a professorship at University of Basel.

The Basel researchers focus on the Blockchain software, a topic that is even closer to the heart of Credit Suisse’ core business.