Freelance consultant, researcher and publicist in the fields of health education and health policy.
Beat Sottas (1955) comes from the education sector and completed his second degree with a doctorate in social sciences at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). After 10 years of research and teaching at the University of Bern, he joined the Federal Administration (Federal Office for Education and Science, Federal Office of Public Health FOPH). In the FOPH, as head of department, he was responsible for educational policy for the medical professions as well as research issues, the dialogue between the Confederation and the cantons and the Primary Care Platform. Since 1988, he has led about 40 research projects (including Swiss Science Council, Federal Chancellery, Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, Swiss Academy of the Humanities and Social Sciences, , Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Swiss Cancer Ligue, Fondation Leenaards, Swiss National Science Foundation, European Health Observatory, Ministry of Health of North Rhine-Westphalia, Münster University of Applied Sciences, the Health Services of the City of Zurich etc.)
Since 2008 he is an independent consultant for public administrations, educational institutions and private companies. He has designed the final competencies of the Health professions and is involved in the development of new medical degree programmes. With his research and consulting agency formative works, he carries out commissioned research for educational and health policy. Important projects from recent years include the NRP 67 research project “Informal Caregivers in Critical End of Life Situations” and various follow-up projects, e.g. for the Cancer League and the FOPH, collaboration on the basic report “Living with chronic diseases – the perspective of patients and relatives” for the National Health Report 2015 (Obsan) and studies on voluntary work and caring relatives. He was the founder of the association Informal Caregivers Fribourg and was its president until March 2018. He is also Board Member of the Pro Pallium Foundation.