ETH News

The COVID-19 pandemic is putting Swiss crisis management to the test. ETH Professor Andreas Wenger and his team from the Center for Security Studies have investigated in detail how well Switzerland coped with the first phase of the crisis.

Bans and simple measures alone won’t solve the problems in plant protection. Robert Finger presses for a comprehensive pesticide policy.

The growing politicisation of AI harbours risks. Sophie-Charlotte Fischer and Andreas Wenger propose a hub for AI research in Switzerland committed to the responsible development of the new technologies.

In order to assess the risk of simultaneous climate extremes such as heatwaves and drought, Jakob Zscheischler calls for various research areas to work more closely together

Until you've lost your reputation … Unlike the saying, you do have something left to lose. On the contrary, reputational loss is costly. Students have proved that through business-based risk analyses.

After 29 years of service, Paul Embrechts of the Department of Mathematics at ETH Zurich is being conferred emeritus status. What was his time at ETH like and what does he have planned for his retirement? ETH News presents a portrait of a researcher who has dedicated his life to studying risk.

In the past, climate scientists have tended to underestimate the risk of a co-occurrence of heatwave and drought. This is the conclusion of one of the first studies to examine compound climate extremes.

Modern data science techniques can also be useful in conflict research. However, in an essay published in the journal Science, Lars-Erik Cederman, Professor of International Conflict Research at ETH Zurich, suggests that certain expectations regarding the predictability of armed conflict are unrealistic. ETH News caught up with him for a chat.

Climate risks in distant countries affect us too: in a globalised world, if China’s breadbasket falls victim to drought, Switzerland may also feel the consequences via the supply chain. Adapting to climate change isn’t just the local issue it’s generally thought to be.

At its meeting of 8/9 July 2015, the ETH Board appointed six professors at ETH Zurich in accordance with the application submitted by ETH Zurich President Lino Guzzella.

The energy supply in Switzerland in the year 2050 was the focus of a conference organised by ETH Zurich's Energy Science Centre (ESC). One thing was very clear: as far as electricity is concerned, no man is an island any longer.

Critical infrastructure systems are the backbone of society and ever growing in complexity and interconnectedness. A new research programme kicked off at the Singapore-ETH Centre strives to increase their robustness and resilience.

ETH researchers have analysed global air connections and found a dense network that starts to fray at the edges. This makes the regions on the periphery vulnerable to disruption, which in turn makes the entire network vulnerable as many regions are at risk of getting completely cut off from the rest of the world.

The world's largest association for statisticians, the ASA, has appointed ETH Professor and RiskLab Director Paul Embrechts as a Fellow.

For the last four years, the Japanese government has resolutely resisted China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy. At the same time, Prime Minister Abe’s cabinet has pushed for a change to Japan’s constitution to remove military constraints. ETH News spoke to political scientist Michael Haas about Japan’s departure from a pacifist security policy.

Wie lassen sich Umwelt- und Gesundheitskosten von neuen Technologien vermeiden? Mit dieser Frage beschäftigte sich ein langjähriges Forschungsprojekt der Europäischen Umweltbehörde. Der ehemalige Leiter des Projekts, David Gee, hat kürzlich an der ETH Zürich erläutert, wie uns vergangene Fehler lehren, zukünftige Umweltprobleme zu vermeiden.

In 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano devastated hundreds of square metres of forest and killed almost 60 people. Now scientists armed with explosives are moving in. Their goal is to create a high-resolution, three-dimensional image of the sub-surface portions of the mountain down to a depth of 70 km to better predict the behaviour of the volatile mountain.

A Europe-wide consortium has published the first harmonised reference model on seismic hazard in Europe and Turkey – the European Seismic Hazard Map 2013. It will be used to elaborate European and national building provisions for earthquake-proof construction. Public authorities, insurances and, last but not least, schools will likewise have the opportunity to use the map.

Michel Liès, CEO of Swiss Re, headed out into the big, wide world when still a young mathemati­cian. For the last thirty years he has been active on the international stage for the Swiss reinsurance company.

More punishment does not necessarily lead to less crime, say researchers at ETH Zurich who have been studying the origins of crime with a computer model. In order to fight crime, more attention should be paid to the social and economic backgrounds that encourage crime.