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Many people at ETH Zurich are faced with the challenge of combining their professional activities with caring for family members. A new, comprehensive website and events are designed to support ETH members in this endeavour.

Cycling is good both for you and the environment. And it will particularly pay off in May and June when “Bike to Work” will also be offering attractive prizes for all frequent cyclists to win.

People from more than 120 nations work at ETH Zurich. They all shape the culture and success of our university. For the next "life" magazine, we would like to focus on their cultural backgrounds - and are looking for employees who did not grow up in Europe.

A new teaching space in the centre offers a flexible environment for project-based education: not only can innovative teaching methods be tried out in the PBLabs RZ, but resources are also available on-site for inspiration, support, and advice.

A broad survey of students at ETH Zurich shows: Language models are still rarely used in the classroom, but they are used frequently and creatively as learning aids.

ETH members toasted the past year at the Executive Board's traditional Christmas Reception. In his speech, President Joël Mesot referred to various records that we as ETH have achieved in 2023.

In the digital information era, Wikipedia plays a central role as global knowledge source. However, taking a closer look its content reveals a significant underrepresentation of women with only 18% of all entries. To increase it, a first Edit-a-thon takes place at ETH Zurich on Tuesday, November 28.

Dr Marco Humbel from the University College London shows the infrastructural challenges faced by memory institutions with their massive digitised collections.

On 3 and 24 November, the Ukrainian Association of Students and Academics will be holding a collection campaign for the people in Ukraine. Your humanitarian donations will be accepted on these days on the Hönggerberg campus and at the ETH Zentrum.

In homage to the architectural historian and photographer Hans-Peter Bärtschi, we celebrate a new photo book from the ETH Library and the complete digitisation of his photographic archive.

The pre-Christmas season is filled with traditions. What are some in your research group or team? Tell us in the next "life" magazine!

At the 17:15 Colloquium by the ETH Library, Dr Michael Ochsner will talk about the results from a decade of research on research quality in the social sciences and humanities and what the sciences can learn from it.

Save the date: The next Thomas Mann Lecture is going to explore Thomas Mann's work from a perspective that has so far received little attention: his mother's Brazilian origins and her connection to slavery and colonialism.

In collaboration with AVETH, ETH Diversity is conferring the Diversity Award for the third year this November. Individuals and organisations will be honoured for their efforts to promote diversity and inclusion at ETH Zurich. Submit your nomination now!

The CERN international research centre near Geneva explores the tiniest fragments of the universe. Scientists from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and PSI are involved in this. An exhibition, guided tours and a series of lectures at ETH aim to provide a broader public with an understanding of the experiments at the world’s largest particle accelerator.

At ETH Week starting on September 10, students from various fields of study will explore the topic of the circular economy. Part of the course is a keynote talk with the founder of Fairphone, Bas van Abel. The talk is open to all ETH members.

Large language models like ChatGPT can do all sorts of things – including writing correct computer code. But how good are they at mathematics? This is one of the questions that will be explained by mathematician Kevin Buzzard from Imperial College, London at the Paul Bernays Lectures on 28, 29 and 30 August 2023.

This morning, part of the courtyard around the Semper Observatory was closed off and a crane was set up to lift a telescope out of the dome. In late August, the original telescope from the founding year 1864 will be reassembled inside the observatory.

For the next issue of life magazine, we are looking for ETH members who would like to talk about their life crises. If you think other people can learn from your experiences and take heart from them, please let us know by 28 August.

In the heart of the city of Zurich, world-class science will meet world-class photography from 8 September 2023. Together, they are creating a new format for communication. The focus is on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations: A multinational compass for the development of a more peaceful and just world. ETH Zurich is the scientific partner of Open Your Eyes 2023.

A newspaper article about a study conducted by the University of Zurich is currently raising a lot of questions. The article claims that women students are less ambitious than their male counterparts and consequently not interested in pursuing a career. This conclusion has alienated many in the ETH community – including Julia Dannath, who as Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership is responsible for diversity at ETH Zurich. In this interview, she explains why.

Go and visit Morph Tales – Exploring Artificial Intelligence to experience in a smart and engaging way how AI and humans can accomplish tasks together. The new game will be unveiled on 1 April 2023 as part of the Informatiktage (Computer Science Days). It will then be available for play at the CAB building from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. until 14 April 2023.  

A workshop of the ETH Library for ETH Master’s students.

The world is changing and so is the environment in which universities operate. The “rETHinking Universities of the Future” exhibition presents 60 drivers of change that will impact and shape the universities of tomorrow – including the ETH community over the next decade.  

From 01 March 2023, two new exhibitions at the Thomas Mann Archives in the ETH main building will provide insights into the life, work and political involvement of one the most famous writers of the 20th century.

In 2022, the Executive Board’s traditional Christmas reception could finally take place in person again after a two-year break. This time, ETH community members closed out the year together on the Hönggerberg campus.

Can you imagine what life at a hybrid university will look like in the year 2040? This was the prompt given to the ETH community in this year’s edition of the Strategic Foresight Hub essay contest. The winning essays have now been unveiled.

More than 300 children aged 10 to 13 visited the ETH Zukunftstag, or “Future Day”, last Thursday. They enjoyed a varied programme that gave them an idea of what it’s like to learn, research or work at our university.

In cooperation with the association "Ukraine Hilfe Graubünden", AVETH and VSETH are collecting humanitarian goods for the people in Ukraine. During four days in October and November, you can drop off your donation at the Hönggerberg campus and the centre.

At ETH Week from 11 September, students from various fields of study will be investigating questions related to the city of the future. The final presentations and two keynote speeches are open to all ETH members.

Can machines acquire capabilities that remind us of (or even exceed) general-purpose intelligent reasoning in humans? This question will be explained by computer scientist Sanjeev Arora from Princeton University at today’s Paul Bernays Lecture in the ETH main building.

Finally: after three years, the employees of ETH Zurich celebrated on Friday at the staff party on the Hönggerberg - and the staff commission (PeKo) was in the middle of it!

More than 4'500 guests travelled to the Hönggerberg on 26 August 2022, to celebrate the big ETH staff party. Now the party is over - what remains are the memories.

The PeKo, as a participatory body for the staff, will also be there. Come by and visit us in the greenhouse on Friday, 08/26/2022. Bar with the PeKo from 19:00 to 22:00. We look forward to meeting you!

The new life magazine for the ETH community is now arriving in everyone’s mailboxes. But this time it’s more than just a new issue – the magazine has been revamped with a fresh look, extra pages and new sections. We’ve also redesigned life to focus even more on you, our valued readers.

Meet the Paralympic gold medallist and world champion on 12 September 2022 at ETH Zurich. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Heinz Frei, one of Switzerland’s most successful top athletes in person!

Make your research easy to understand, present your findings in a compelling way and convey a confident image to the media: the Communication Academy course programme for the Autumn 2022 semester is now online.

After around a year and a half of facilitating connections at ETH, LunchLottery will be held for the last time in June. The programme showed that the desire of the ETH community to make connections with different parts of the university still persisted strongly throughout the pandemic.