News

How can healthcare systems and their professionals address future challenges? The Swiss Public Health Conference 2027 in Sion will explore this question. Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit their ideas for presentations by February 1, 2027.

How do earthquakes occur? Seismologist Anne Obermann from the Swiss Seismological Service, together with a research team from Paris, has applied unsupervised machine learning to data from ETH Zurich’s BedrettoLab. The collaboration was made possible by the Germaine de Staël funding programme. The method identified significantly more seismic events than the previous reference catalogue. This now opens up a broader perspective: initial analyses of data from the Blatten ice and rockfall suggest that the activity of an unstable slope may already be trackable using just a single seismic station. In an interview with the SATW, Obermann explains how a research collaboration gave rise to a new idea for monitoring natural hazards.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, mRNA technology gained worldwide recognition. Now it could also transform cancer treatment: the first personalised mRNA vaccine against melanoma has shown promising results in a large Phase III trial. When used in combination with immunotherapy, it reduced the risk of recurrence by 42 per cent. How does a vaccine work that is produced individually for each patient? And what still stands in the way of its widespread use?

What will change when AI no longer merely provides answers, but takes over work? The SATW’s Digital Industry specialist group examines the potential of agent-based AI, ranging from administrative order processing to collaboration between humans and intelligent robots. This also addresses the strategic question of what role Switzerland can and wishes to play in this development.

Since 2025, the global L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science program has had a Swiss chapter, with SATW as a partner: every year, four early-career researchers working in Switzerland receive 25,000 Swiss Francs each. The second cohort was honored on 21 October 2026. The jury is chaired by Janet Hering – aquatic scientist, professor emerita at ETH Zurich and EPFL, and the first woman to head a Swiss federal research institute, the Eawag. In conversation with SATW, she explains what convinces a jury, why role models alone are not enough, and where the implementation of gender equality actually breaks down.

Although Switzerland is regarded as a world leader in innovation, technology transfer is faltering. This is evident from a number of findings in the SATW’s 2024 Innovation Capacity Analysis: The proportion of companies engaged in research and development is falling, and the share of turnover generated by new products has declined, particularly among SMEs, which form the backbone of the Swiss economy. How can companies capitalise on new technologies and thereby reignite the engine of innovation?