Resources

In the summer of 2013, a group of students at ETH Zürich issued a call for a more transdisciplinary curriculum. They demanded that in the course of their studies, all students should have at least one opportunity to approach a great societal challenge of our time. Since some study programmes at ETH Zürich completely omitted the topic of sustainable development at that time, the students took their request directly to the university’s Executive Board and demanded that at least one interdisciplinary course be offered on such a topic for all students, regardless of the subject they study. The students had chosen a good time to present their request. The then Rector, Lino Guzzella, was launching the Critical Thinking Initiative at the same time.

In the framework of the Critical Thinking Initiative, the Executive Board commissioned ETH Sustainability to develop a new teaching format that would stand out as a lighthouse project of the initiative both within ETH Zürich and beyond. This new format was to provide targeted support in acquiring the skills identified as lacking, while at the same time meeting the students’ wish for a transdisciplinary curriculum. At that moment, ETH Week was born.