ETH4D News

The Engineering for Humanitarian Action Initiative, a collaborative effort between ETH Zurich and EPFL and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), continues to spearhead research to bolster humanitarian efforts worldwide.

With the support of the ETH4D Research Challenges and Seed Grants, more research groups at ETH are able to conduct research for global sustainable development. The topics range from reducing child labour in cocoa production in Ghana, Citywide Inclusive Sanitation in Nepal, faecal sludge dewatering in Lebanon to reusing tennis balls for seismic isolation.

The SDG Pitch event went into it's third round with exciting ideas from students at ETH and UZH who are working towards a sustainable future.  

Through the ETH4D Mentorship Programme Christopher Kanyesigye is collaborating with Dr. Sara Marks, EAWAG on his doctoral project on the evaluation of the effectiveness of Water Safety Plan implementation in small towns of Uganda.

How can we provide inclusive design and simple construction processes for sustainable and resilient housing? Which technologies can be leveraged to ensure high quality of recycled water as an alternative water source? The most recent projects selected for the ETH4D Research Challenges & Seed Grants are addressing these challenges by using local materials and online sensors and remote monitoring. Get to know all five projects below. 

We talked to ETH4D's Grant Manager Patricia Heuberger, who has been appointed as the Scholars at Risk Coordinator in the ETH Support Group Ukraine. She has been closely working together with ETH professors to directly support Ukrainians who had to flee to Switzerland. She talks about how the ETH Support Group Ukraine came to life, her experiences as the Scholars at Risk Coordinator, and what she takes away for the future.

For research and innovation at ETH to have a real impact, it must go beyond the boundaries of the university and be made accessible to practitioners and policy makers. ETH4D is supporting "Research-to-Action" projects, ranging from a user study for a low-cost ventilator in South Africa, to an app to increase the reuse of building materials in India, to trainings for WASH stakeholders in Ethiopia on the use and dissemination of a decision support tool for sustainable sanitation options.

We are excited to introduce you to E4D's Doctoral Fellows 2022: Andrés Javier Hernandez, Bigyan Babu Regmi and Jonathan Olal Ogwang. The fellows set out to develop and deploy solutions for diagnosing mosquito-borne diseases, analysing the impact of education programmes on energy-related financial literacy and energy consumption behaviour in Nepal, and understanding the successes and failures of biogas in Sub-saharan Africa.

Switzerland’s two Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich and EPFL, along with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), announce the launch of several new collaborative research projects to develop innovative solutions for humanitarian action.

How to safely manage human waste in humanitarian settings? The most recent project  selected for the ETH4D Research Challenges tackles exactly this question by optimising and implementing an anaerobic biodigester developed by Sistema.bio that transforms human waste to energy to ultimately bring a completely modular human waste treatment system to market for use in humanitarian settings.

Dr. Dario Sanchez visited the Chair of Seismic Design and Analysis at ETH Zurich to exchange knowledge on topics related to low cost seismic design, and more particularly to low cost seismic isolation systems.

Through the ETH4D Mentorship Programme, 4 doctoral candidates across the globe collaborate with professors from ETH Zurich on their doctoral projects ranging from prediction of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in obese people to decision-making processes of community-managed boreholes in Ghana. Part of the mentorship is a 3-month research stay at ETH Zurich. The mentees talk about their motivation behind the mentorship and plans for their research stays.

As part of the programme "Together for the SDGs", the Panel "Careers in Sustainability & Global Development" and Pitch Event "Building a Sustainable Future" took place. Over 80 students got a chance to get insights on careers and projects that tackle global sustainable development. 

Two weeks of solid waste, design thinking, prototyping and collaboration: The first hybrid Summer School "Rethinking Waste" between ETH Zurich and KNUST in Ghana was a success! Ten teams at both universities intensely worked on their own innovative ideas to tackle a specific solid waste management issue.

In this semester, Dr. Rubain Adéyèmi Bankolé from the University of Parakou, Benin, Dr. Charles Gyamfi and Dr. Eugene Appiah-Effah from KNUST, Ghana are visiting ETH Zurich for collaborative research and to build on existing research partnerships.  

Peter Bühlmann, Professor of Mathematics from D-MATH at ETH Zurich, gave a talk for the African Master’s in Machine Intelligence (AMMI) at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) last week. 

The Group of Forest Management and Development is collaborating with the NGO arboRise to investigate low-cost sustainable reforestation with seedballs in Guinea. The Sustainable Agroecosystems Group, Vivamos Mejor Guatemala and Mosan are developing and evaluating an effective faeces biochar soil amendment for dry sanitation.

Students and young researchers from ETH Zurich are putting their research into practice! Projects include innovation platform meetings and transdisciplinary stakeholder workshop for dynamic agroforestry systems for sustainable cocoa cultivation in Ghana, testing a prototype of a portable solar-cart in India, and developing a model for industry partnerships for an initiative that aims to provide education everywhere by giving research equipment a second life. Learn more about the projects!

We are excited to announce that applications are now open for our accredited Master’s programme in Mechatronic Engineering! The programme is offered by Ashesi University and ETH Zurich, and taught at Ashesi by faculty of both institutions. The programme equips students with specialist competences and wide range of skills to pursue a career in this dynamic field.

The goal of the ETH4D Humanitarian Action Challenges is to support project-based research between ETH Zurich researchers, EPFL researchers and the ICRC to leverage science and technology for a greater impact of humanitarian action. Applications are now open until 15 July (17.00 CEST).

During the Nachhaltigkeitswoche Zurich, together with the African Student Association Zurich (ASAZ), ETH4D hosted the storytelling event “African Leadership for a Sustainable Future: Stories to Inspire” on March 12, 2021. Students, junior researchers, and entrepreneurs from the ETH community shared their stories behind their commitment to global sustainable development.

Meet visiting scientist Dr. Nia Hidayat and visiting students Andrés Javier Bello Hernandez, Arpit Mishra and Parwiz Mosamim. Coming from across the globe with different academic backgrounds, all of them have different plans for their research stays at ETH Zurich. 

We are happy to introduce you to the three newest E4D Doctoral Fellows Sergio Reyes Arriagada from Chile, Frank Odhiambo from Kenya and Prabhat Joshi from Nepal. Their doctoral projects range from inclusive education to solutions for the effects of natural disasters.

Postdoctoral researchers Nilkanth Kumar and Suchita Srinivasan at the Chair of Energy and Public Economics (D-MTEC) at ETH Zurich share some experiences and findings of their ongoing research "Nudging the Adoption of Fuel-Efficient Vehicles" in Nepal together with Prof. Massimo Filippini. 

In the autumn semester 2020, ETH4D together with NADEL, offered the course "Sustainable Development - Bridging Art and Science" for the second time. The idea of the course is to use movies as a means to communicate research to a wider audience. Art can be a central tool for this.Therefore, students are exposed to critical issues of global sustainable development through different movies. As a final project, student-teams create their own films on a chosen topic related to sustainable development. 

Meet the grantee of the fourth round grant of the ETH4D Research Challenges. The project aims at improving access to effective treatment option for perinatal mental health in India. It will evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and utility of using a decision-making app for perinatal depression and anxiety in India. In an interview with Dr. Sonali Mohanty Quantius we find out more about the project, what inspired it and how the app may help raise awareness of mental health issues across India.

Creating space for collaborative learning where future leaders can draw from different skills and perspectives is key for sustainable development. On 13 October 2020, together with Ashesi University in Ghana and five industrial partners, we celebrated the take-off of the Ashesi-ETH Master in Engineering. This collaborative initiative aims at bringing about highly educated engineers in Africa to ensure sustainable patterns of development for both Ghana and Africa.