Federal Act
on the Promotion of Research and Innovation
(RIPA)

¹ Re­search fund­ing in­sti­tu­tions shall de­mand the re­pay­ment of the funds which they have gran­ted if these have been wrong­fully paid out or if the re­cip­i­ent has not ful­filled his ob­lig­a­tions des­pite hav­ing been re­minded to do so.

² The right to de­mand re­pay­ment shall pre­scribe three years from the time that the donor be­comes aware of it, and in any case ten years from the time that the right is cre­ated.⁴³

^2bis If the re­cip­i­ent has com­mit­ted a crim­in­al of­fence through his or her con­duct, the right to de­mand re­pay­ment pre­scribes at the earli­est when the right to pro­sec­ute the of­fence pre­scribes. If the right to pro­sec­ute is no longer li­able to pre­scrip­tion be­cause a first in­stance crim­in­al judg­ment has been is­sued, the right to de­mand re­pay­ment pre­scribes at the earli­est three years after no­tice of the judg­ment is giv­en.⁴⁴

³ Re­search fund­ing in­sti­tu­tions shall use re­paid funds for tasks as­signed to them by the Con­fed­er­a­tion. They shall provide in­form­a­tion on this in their an­nu­al re­ports.