ETH News

In 2023, a record-breaking 43 spin-offs were founded at ETH Zurich. Why are ETH spin-offs so successful? Tracing the typical path of a start-up.

Medical students at ETH Zurich build a gripper hand for elbow exoskeletons in a crash course lasting just one week. This course has now been honoured with the 2024 Kite Award, the ETH prize for particularly innovative teaching.

A new Master’s degree programme in Space Systems will be launched at ETH Zurich in autumn 2024. Interested parties can start applying in April.

At ETH Zurich, there is a room where the sun shines at the touch of a button; one hour it’s noon in the Sahara, the next it’s January in Berlin. Researchers use it to test newly developed building systems, components and materials.

ETH student Luca Hasler has developed a new set of handlebars for parathlete Flurina Rigling. After clinching two world championship titles, she now aims to qualify for the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

ETH Zurich researchers taught an autonomous excavator to construct dry stone walls itself using boulders weighing several tonnes and demolition debris.

ETH is offering a new continuing education programme in the serviceability and repairability of buildings and products. The CAS is backed by an architect, a product developer and a production technologist.

Every year at ETH Zurich, hundreds of students learn the fundamentals of mathematics through lectures and exercises. Now, their lecturers are also setting them practise sequences on the computer. This interview highlights the potential of a new method.

The grass-roots movement founded by architectural students and scientific staff has been awarded the Prix Meret Oppenheim in recognition of its engagement in driving fundamental change in the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich.

Solar façade panels developed by the group working under ETH Professor Arno Schlüter follow the sun’s position in the sky and in this way harvest more energy. The technology has now been awarded the Watt D’Or Energy Prize.

The new Enhance Alliance of ten European technical universities aims to make it easier to study abroad. ETH Zurich officially joined the alliance today.

At ETH Week, more than 130 students devoted last week to looking into the subject of Urban Futures. In the video, they share their experience.

Did you miss an important moment? ETH Zurich researchers have developed a system that can record and later replay events in a room in 3D.

This year’s ETH award for particularly innovative teaching projects goes to a course that brings physics experiments for students right into their home. The project was up against 24 others competing for the KITE Award 2022.

Cookie consent banners only appear to give users control over their data. So researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a browser extension that uses machine learning to recognise and block unnecessary cookies.

Since 17 January, ETH lecturers have been working alongside colleagues at Ashesi University in Ghana. On Monday, the new joint Master’s in Mechatronic Engineering launched with 26 students from seven African countries.

The Student Project House offers a model of what learning might look like in the future. With no course credits on offer, students are encouraged to develop critical thinking skills and to venture into unknown territory.

The Swiss federal government uses the institutional accreditation process to review the quality assurance systems of universities and colleges. An international group of experts has attested to ETH Zurich’s having a “distinctive and broadly internalised culture of quality” based on participation, trust and the ETH spirit.

A survey of ETH students finds that just 62 percent are satisfied with their studies, down from 82 percent in 2015. The main reason for the decline is the pandemic. However, ETH has improved on many specific issues, such as teaching.

ETH and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems are intensifying their partnership to promote doctoral candidates and research: ETH professors Otmar Hilliges, Thomas Hofmann, Andreas Krause and Klaas P. Prüssmann are new Max Planck fellows in Tübingen and Stuttgart.

Swissloop Tunneling, a team of students from ETH Zurich and other universities, has won second place in a tunnelling competition hosted by Elon Musk in Las Vegas. Their tunnelling machine has also won the Innovation & Design Award.

ETH researchers often work together with industry, offering them the chance to apply their knowledge. ETH Industry Day 2021 and this quiz demonstrate how this is done.

3D printing can be used to build load-bearing concrete structures that require significantly less material and no steel reinforcement or mortar. ETH architects and engineers from the Block Research Group in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Architects and other partners from industry showed how this works with a footbridge in Venice.

The 23-metre-high tower made of 3D-printed columns is to become a cultural site in Mulegns, a village on the Julier Pass with just 16 inhabitants. The structure is being planned by ETH architects and engineers. Construction is scheduled to start in spring 2022 with robots printing the tower’s components on site.

ETH Zurich is launching a new Centre for Augmented Computational Design in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, known as Design++. 22 professorships from multiple departments are joining forces to develop digitally augmented design tools with a view to improving the efficiency and sustainability of construction.

Officially elected today by the ETH Board, Günther Dissertori is to take over as Rector of ETH Zurich in February 2022. In this portrait, he talks about what tasks he finds the most challenging and what effective teaching has in common with excellence in physics.

ETH researchers have performed an experiment to find out how the liability of physicians is viewed by a jury trial when the physicians concerned have made use of artificial intelligence.

ETH researchers have created a database of over 3,000 primary and secondary packaging items from the range of the retailer Denner as a basis for ensuring more environmentally friendly packaging.

Shares in ETH spin-off HeiQ have been traded on the London Stock Exchange since Monday morning in the first ever listing of an ETH spin-off on a stock exchange outside Switzerland.

Well-trained, dedicated engineers from Africa will play an increasing role in industrial development in sub-Saharan Africa. This is what has inspired ETH Zurich to join forces with Ashesi University in Ghana and Swiss companies ABB, BarryCallebaut, Bühler, Lafarge-Holcim and Nestlé to co-present a new Master’s degree programme.

Swissloop, the team of students developing hyperloop pods, took advantage of the break imposed by the coronavirus to improve the technology even further. Yesterday they unveiled their “research pod”. At its core lies a technologically refined linear motor that will propel future prototypes at even faster speeds.

The way people move around in cities gives us clues as to when many crimes are committed and in which hotspots, as ETH researchers have demonstrated using anonymised data from  location technology plattforms.

Three out of five awards for young entrepreneurs issued by the W.A. de Vigier Foundation have gone to ETH start-ups. The awards come with prize money of CHF 100,000 each.

From autumn, ETH Zurich will offer a Master’s programme in Landscape Architecture – a first for a Swiss university. The demand for landscape architects is greater than ever, say professors Christoph Girot and Teresa Galí-Izard.

ETH researchers are making chocolates shimmer in rainbow colours without the addition of colourants. They have found a way to imprint a special structure on the surface of the chocolate to create a targeted colour effect.

Metamaterials defy conventions, making rigid media flexible, soft materials transmit signals, and sound and light behave in bizarre ways. Metamaterials are engineered to possess properties not found in nature.

The political leeway for carbon taxes is greater than commonly assumed. Political scientists at ETH have shown how carbon taxes could find acceptance in Germany and the US. What matters most is the intended use of the tax revenues and that all industrialised nations implement the taxes.

A solar façade developed at ETH Zurich combines electricity production with intelligent shading to achieve optimal energy balance.

Architect and ETH Professor Elli Mosayebi is developing new forms of housing. Over the course of one year, she’s testing a small home with a flexible floor plan on ETH’s Hönggerberg campus.

With drones in the air, on glaciers and inside the earth: experiments by ETH researchers are carried out at the remotest locations. In this quiz, we take you with us on a journey to where ETH research takes place.

A new machine-learning method developed by ETH scientists makes it possible to predict burglaries even in sparsely populated areas.

An institutional framework agreement between Switzerland and the EU is due to be concluded – although it still faces a number of hurdles on the domestic front. ETH professor Michael Ambühl and his team have developed a concrete proposal for a solution that would remove these hurdles. It includes a dispute settlement procedure that does not involve the European Court of Justice.

Researchers from ETH Zurich want to know what roles artificial intelligence (AI) can take on in self-driving cars. To find out, they are having research teams compete against each other in an international competition with the robot taxi fleets of Duckietown.

With just the press of a button, ETH researchers knit a textile that serves as the primary shaping element for curved concrete shells. Now they have used the new technology to create a five-tonne concrete structure for an exhibition in Mexico City.

Swiss Federal Councillor Johann Schneider-Ammann invited the economics ministers of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein to attend the traditional quadripartite meeting in Switzerland yesterday. ETH Zurich hosted the event. During a podium discussion in the run-up to the main meeting, ETH students exchanged viewpoints with the ministers on the challenges presented by digitalisation.

Roots can be “listened to” while growing – and worms when burrowing. Researchers from ETH Zurich and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research present a new method for soil analysis.

The third Hyperloop Pod Competition in LA saw Swissloop compete against teams from all over the world. Due to a short-circuit, their pod didn't make it into the top three.

ETH Emeritus Professor Christian Menn has died. The bridges designed by the world-renowned, award-winning Swiss engineer have become famous landmarks.

Extraordinary and economical: civil engineer and architect Philippe Block develops novel ways of building for the architecture of tomorrow. He has now been awarded the Rössler Prize for his work.

Measuring instruments, art and a medicinal plant garden: ETH Zurich possesses a rich cultural heritage, which will be presented to the public on Sunday, 3 June. Stefan Wiederkehr, Head Collections and Archives, talks about discoveries and hidden treasures.

As part of the first Formula E race in Switzerland, researchers and representatives from industry and politics will come to ETH Zurich to discuss future solutions for intelligent and sustainable mobility.

Many school pupils fail at physics because they misunderstand the fundamental concepts. A new teaching method can change this – ETH researchers have now proven its effect. It particularly helps intelligent girls to learn more effectively.

ETH Zurich students are learning about self-driving vehicles using a model with a fleet of mini-taxis. As part of the Duckietown course, they are working together with students in Montreal and Chicago on problems that concern developers of self-driving cars around the world.