IMI is a consortium of academic, public and private partners which was created in January 2018 in an effort to stimulate innovation in the media sector, both through information technology and in relation to human and social sciences. Our aim is to initiate research and innovation projects with affiliated universities and in partnership with our media members, and to conduct activities to promote innovation by engaging with a wider community involving researchers, media professionals and investors.

To this end, our founding members which are EPFL, SRG, Ringier and Triangle Azur—a cooperation network between the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne and Neuchâtel—as well as our affiliate members such as HES-SO Valais-Wallis, maintain an innovation support fund with an annual budget of approximately CHF 650,000. The Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) has also co-sponsored projects under our Initiative. We are open to all private and public organizations, in Switzerland or abroad, who wish to join and are active in the relevant fields.

Topics of interest include fake news, content recommendation and personalization, conversational interfaces, immersive experiences, artificial intelligence, and also new business models, as well as the cultural and social aspects of media. With our initiative, we want to build a bridge between creativity and technology, between the world of media and that of academic research, on the basis that an interdisciplinary approach is one of the keys to innovation.

We are hosted by EPFL where the Media Center is in charge of running the Initiative and acts as an interface between academic institutions and media companies.