Die Stiftung wissenschaftliche Politikstipendien vergibt per September 2023 zwei Politikstipendien für junge Wissenschaftlerinnen oder Wissenschaftler. Die Stipendien ermöglichen Abgängerinnen und Abgängern von Schweizer Hochschulen aller Fachbereiche und Disziplinen, die politischen Prozesse im Schweizer Parlament kennenzulernen. Für ein Jahr unterstützen Sie die Arbeit der Parlamentsdienste im Bundeshaus in Bern. Die Bewerbungsfrist läuft bis zum 13. März 2023.
ESC Summer School 2023: Energy Technology, Policy and Politics – how to build a net-zero GHG emissions energy system
27. August – 1. September 2023, Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland
For more information and registration
This summer school of the Energy Science Center (ESC) is aiming to present an in-depth understanding of the energy sector to early-stage researchers from around the world. The theme of the summer school will be to address the following questions from a technical, economic and policy perspective:
- How does the energy supply system function today and potentially in the future?
- What are the main challenges and opportunities in achieving a net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions energy supply system?
- How can needed investments in the energy system be realized?
- How can policy accelerate the transition to a net zero energy system?
- How can political ambition be increased or implement such accelerating policies?
The ESC is a collaborating competence center of the RESPONSE Doctoral Program .
America’s Inflation Reduction Act is asking too much of car manufacturers and electric vehicle supply chains
Response Doctoral Program
America’s recently passed climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), provides strong support for accelerated adoption of clean vehicles in the US. Subsidies are generous for consumers looking to go electric, but only for vehicles that meet strict geographic requirements for critical mineral sourcing, battery manufacturing and vehicle assembly. Unabashedly, the US is seeking to shift the EV supply chain from China to North America, but at what cost?
RESPONSE fellow Bessie Noll discusses whether the isolationist IRA is the right move for the US and, more importantly, the climate.
Read Bessie Nolls’ Energy Blog article.
Continue reading America’s Inflation Reduction Act is asking too much of car manufacturers and electric vehicle supply chains
America’s Inflation Reduction Act is asking too much of car manufacturers and electric vehicle supply chains
Response Doctoral Program
America’s recently passed climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), provides strong support for accelerated adoption of clean vehicles in the US. Subsidies are generous for consumers looking to go electric, but only for vehicles that meet strict geographic requirements for critical mineral sourcing, battery manufacturing and vehicle assembly. Unabashedly, the US is seeking to shift the EV supply chain from China to North America, but at what cost?
RESPONSE fellow Bessie Noll discusses whether the isolationist IRA is the right move for the US and, more importantly, the climate.
Read Bessie Nolls’ Energy Blog article.
Bessie Noll is currently a fellow in the RESPONSE Doctoral Program (DP) «RESPONSE – to society and policy needs through plant, food and energy sciences» funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 847585.
Citation: Noll, Bessie. “America’s Inflation Reduction Act is asking too much of car manufacturers and electric vehicle supply chains”, Energy Blog @ ETH Zurich, ETH Zurich, December 6, 2022, https://blogs.ethz.ch/energy/inflation-reduction-act/
Featured photo is ETH-licensed from Adobe Stock.
Getting Your Message Across: How to Make Yourself and Your Research Visible – RESPONSE Mentoring Workshop
March 17, 2023, 9:00 – 17:00, ETH Zurich
In this workshop, participants will learn how to reach a wider audience with your topics and texts and how to prepare and convey your content in an understandable and attractive way in the digital age. They will work on a popular science blog post, learn about graphic tools to support the text in a multimedia and interactive way, learn about the pitfalls and strengths of social media and how to create and manage your own web presence for yourself and your research. Another focus is on visibility: How do I build and manage a community? How can I communicate the importance of my research for politics, economy and society – and actually reach them?
Continue reading Getting Your Message Across: How to Make Yourself and Your Research Visible – RESPONSE Mentoring WorkshopRESPONSE Mentoring Workshop – Getting Your Message Across: How to Make Yourself and Your Research Visible
Response Doctoral Program
In this workshop, participants will learn how to reach a wider audience with your topics and texts and how to prepare and convey your content in an understandable and attractive way in the digital age. They will work on a popular science blog post, learn about graphic tools to support the text in a multimedia and interactive way, learn about the pitfalls and strengths of social media and how to create and manage your own web presence for yourself and your research. Another focus is on visibility: How do I build and manage a community? How can I communicate the importance of my research for politics, economy and society – and actually reach them?
Continue reading RESPONSE Mentoring Workshop – Getting Your Message Across: How to Make Yourself and Your Research Visible
Communicating Science and Policy by Fact Sheets
PSC Science and Policy Career Talk Series
On November 16, 2022 the first event of PSC Science and Policy Talk series took place. During 1.5 hours our invited guest speaker Dr. Sascha Ismail provided a lively insight into his work at the Swiss Biodiversity Forum at the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) in Berne and on his career path.
Sascha Ismail gave personal insights about his science and policy interface work in Switzerland. He explained how he is impacting conservation and biodiversity policies with factsheets that he coordinates in collaboration with Swiss research institutions. From his personal experience, he highlighted important considerations when planning, writing, consolidating, and communicating science-based policy recommendations in policy briefs and factsheets. This included considerations related to data design and layout as well as perspectives and perceptions of stakeholders on the topic of the current biodiversity crisis.
“For a factsheet to have impact, it is not enough to summarize scientific findings in an understandable way. The topic must be relevant to society, it needs careful graphic design, and the publication must be accompanied by other communication measures such as a press release.”
Continue reading Communicating Science and Policy by Fact Sheets
Unlock valuable protein sources in the pseudocereal buckwheat
Response Doctoral Program
Pseudocereals such as buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) are under-utilized as sources for plant-based proteins in current times, where the world is searching for a diversification of agricultural cropping systems. Buckwheat was an important crop in recent times in Western Europe including Switzerland and has several qualities:
- It is a valuable source of proteins for human nutrition. Buckwheat contains all nine essential amino acids which makes it a high-quality, complete protein. It is rich in limiting amino acids like lysine and arginine, which are in shortest supply in plant-based diets.
- It became popular in satisfying the increasing demand for gluten-free foods.
- It has a unique taste – in contrast to rice or wheat.
- So far, it is little affected by pests and diseases in the field that could reduce its yield.
- As a cover crop, it contributes to soil protection and soil improvement as part of a crop rotation.
- It is good for pollinators and a rich source of nectar while contributing to a biologically diverse agriculture.
Despite all these positive qualities, buckwheat cultivation suffers from low and unstable yields, and in comparison to wheat, the baking quality is inferior. Potentially, this bottleneck can be overcome with breeding. Here, the screening of genetic resources could unlock undiscovered potential and the cultivation of buckwheat on Swiss farms may experience a renaissance!
Continue reading Unlock valuable protein sources in the pseudocereal buckwheatUnlock valuable protein sources in the pseudocereal buckwheat
Response Doctoral Program
Pseudocereals such as buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) are under-utilized as sources for plant-based proteins in current times, where the world is searching for a diversification of agricultural cropping systems. Buckwheat was an important crop in recent times in Western Europe including Switzerland and has several qualities:
- It is a valuable source of proteins for human nutrition. Buckwheat contains all nine essential amino acids which makes it a high-quality, complete protein. It is rich in limiting amino acids like lysine and arginine, which are in shortest supply in plant-based diets.
- It became popular in satisfying the increasing demand for gluten-free foods.
- It has a unique taste – in contrast to rice or wheat – and can be made into deliciously tart pancakes or pasta.
- So far, it is little affected by pests and diseases in the field that could reduce its yield.
- As a cover crop, it contributes to soil protection and soil improvement as part of a crop rotation.
- It is good for pollinators and a rich source of nectar while contributing to a biologically diverse agriculture.
Despite all these positive qualities, buckwheat cultivation suffers from low and unstable yields, and in comparison to wheat, the baking quality is inferior. Potentially, this bottleneck can be overcome with breeding. Here, the screening of genetic resources could unlock undiscovered potential and the cultivation of buckwheat on Swiss farms may experience a renaissance!
Continue reading Unlock valuable protein sources in the pseudocereal buckwheat
Plant-based proteins: Peas as a source of necessary amino acids for human nutrition
In a series of articles, we introduce research from the PSC network that support increases of ecological plant-based protein production for human nutrition in Switzerland and worldwide.
Peas, for example the yellow pea, have a high concentration of almost all essential amino acids. Compared to soy, they have no allergenic potential. They are particularly interesting for human nutrition, both in cooking and as a basis in the food industry for meat substitutes or protein-rich drinks.
A challenge, however, is their cultivation. Here it is necessary to maintain a crop rotation that allows up to 8 years break between cultivation on the same land. Why? Soil legume fatigue is caused by various harmful soil organisms and affects pea roots to the point of total crop failure.
Resistant and high-yielding peas were the focus of a collaboration between ETH Zurich and FIBL. Research was conducted to see if peas resistant to soil legume fatigue could be grown with shorter crop rotations. In fact, resistant pea plants were found whose roots were heavily colonized by helpful soil organisms. Do these soil organisms help repel the harmful organisms?
With a newly established resistance screening reproducible distinction between susceptible and resistant pea lines is possible. The screening system allows to predict PRRC resistance for a given field site and offers a tool for selection at the seedling stage in breeding nurseries.
Citation
Lukas Wille, Mario Kurmann, Monika M. Messmer, Bruno Studer and Pierre Hohmann (2021). Untangling the Pea Root Rot Complex Reveals Microbial Markers for Plant Health. Front. Plant Sci.: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.737820
Some of the researchers
Dr. Lukas Wille, researcher at FiBL, Switzerland and former researcher at ETH Zurich is working on complexes of root rot pathogens, resistance of pea against root rot disease and the role that microbial diversity and plant-microbe interactions play in shaping the pathobiome and plant resistance. Bruno Studer is professor for Molecular Plant Breeding at ETH Zurich