Gérard Escher has a diploma in Biology from the University of Geneva, and a PhD from the University of Lausanne. He joined the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow and research associate. After his return to Switzerland (University of Lausanne), he led a research group working on synapse formation. In 1999, he became scientific advisor to Secretary of State for Education and Research, Charles Kleiber. He became assistant director at the State Secretariat for Education and Research in January 2005, in charge of science policy and forecast. In 2008 he moved to EPFL, where he acted as senior advisor to President Patrick Aebischer (2008-2017) and Martin Vetterli (2017-2021).