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Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences
Pandemics: improving preparedness and management
European science and ethics advisors have issued an Opinion on more successfully preventing and pre-empting emerging infectious diseases. Their recommendations include enhanced international coordination, strengthened systems of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and management as well as how to uphold fundamental rights and social justice in times of health emergencies. The recommendations also concern systemic issues, most notably related to sustainability and social justice, taking European values and respect for fundamental rights as points of orientation.
The Opinion was developed jointly by the European Commission’s independent Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies and Peter Piot, Special Advisor to the President of the European Commission on the response to Covid-19.
Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences SATW
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Swiss precision in space
Switzerland does not launch any large rockets of its own, but it is involved in research missions throughout the solar system. Universities develop scientific instruments, companies supply high-precision technology, and a growing number of start-ups are seeking to develop new business opportunities from this.Swiss Young Academy SYA
Blog
Bridging research and practice
He brings together people from within and beyond academia – with the aim of helping us respond more effectively to climate change. Benjamin Hofmann is a researcher at ETH Zurich’s TdLab. As a member of the Swiss Young Academy, teaching is particularly important to him.
Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences SATW
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More Swiss research in space: Florian Kehl on the development of space missions at ETH Zurich
Four telescopes that must maintain a stable focus on extremely faint galaxies for an exceptionally long time, and detectors that remain at a constant temperature of around –130 degrees Celsius throughout: the ARRAKIHS space telescope has been built to the very limits of what is technically possible. In June 2026, the European Space Agency (ESA) gave the go-ahead for the mission – with a Swiss contribution for which Florian Kehl was responsible until the end of 2025. To ensure that such contributions do not remain isolated cases, in addition to high-quality research, we need structures, streamlined processes and people who can get entire missions off the ground. This is precisely what Kehl is working on today as Director of Space Research Initiatives at ETH Zurich | Space. In an interview with SATW, he explains what makes ARRAKIHS so technically challenging, just how competitive Switzerland really is when it comes to securing leadership roles in European missions, and why, in his view, the search for extraterrestrial life might be on the verge of yielding an answer.