Strategic Areas ETH Domain & Joint Initiatives

In its Strategic Plan, the ETH Board has defined five Strategic Areas for the period 2025-2028. The Strategic Areas are topics of particular societal importance where the institutions of the ETH Domain can make a significant impact, on their own as well as in cooperation. They are: Human Health; Energy, Climate and Environmental Sustainability; Responsible Digital Transformation; Advanced Materials and Key Technologies; Engagement and Dialogue with Society. Besides these defined Strategic Areas, the ETH Board emphasizes the importance of fundamental discovery science as the cornerstone of all the ETH Domain institutions’ research activities.

What are Joint Initiatives?

Joint Initiatives have the explicit ambition to achieve a tangible impact on society and in addition must meet the following criteria:

• They relate to a Strategic Area of the ETH Domain for the years 2025-2028.
• They address the question: “How to best serve Switzerland?” when defining their contribution to one of the Strategic Areas and their longer term impact.
• They require a higher level of inter-institutional coordination and cooperation than an individual institution can bear alone to achieve excellence at the national and international level.  
• They should lead to new institutionalised forms of collaboration within the ETH Domain and beyond, and be of national relevance (e.g. national platforms).
• They have a long-term horizon.

The ETH Board already decided to launch the first call for Joint Initiatives for the two Strategic Areas “Energy, Climate and Ecological Sustainability” and “Engagement and Dialogue with Society” in 2022 in order to respond swiftly to urgent challenges and has selected 10 Joint Initiaitives.

The Joint Initiative Management Office is hosted by PSI. It supports the Steering Committee and is in charge of the administrative and daily operation of the JI such as preparation of meetings, controlling, budgeting and reporting.

The funded projects are implemented by the research institutions. 

The call for Joint Initiatives in the ETH Domain’s Strategic Areas of “Human Health”, “Responsible Digital Transformation” and “Advanced Materials and Key Technologies” had to be suspended for lack of sufficient financial resources. More Information here.