A blood clot can restrict the blood flow in a blood vessel to such an extent that the medications intended to dissolve it can barely reach their target. Microbots driven by magnetic fields could now provide an unusual solution to this problem.

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich is upcycling waste made from polyethylene and polypropylene – two of the world’s most used plastics – into an extremely strong adhesive – and much more besides.  

CSS doctoral researcher Francesco Ignazio Re, in collaboration with the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York, has developed a framework for integrating Artificial Intelligence into the UN information services. The work examines how AI can make the United Nations' extensive documentary record more accessible while ensuring that the technology is used responsibly and in accordance with the organization's principles.

ETH Zurich researchers have developed FlexiQuad, a soft drone whose frame deforms in a controlled manner when it collides with obstacles. They have filed a patent application for the structural design. Despite its soft frame, the drone can fly fast and manoeuvre nimbly. 

Solar storms can knock satellites out of their orbits. A space mission led by ETH Zurich intends to better predict weather conditions in the solar system from 2030 onwards. 

AI is transforming the way we monitor and manage biodiversity. While these tools hold promise to level the playing field, they could also entrench existing inequities, says Melissa Chapman. At the UN biodiversity conference in Armenia, she aims to understand how the use of AI is shaping the negotiations. 

Did the Addams Family stop by ETH Zurich? A severed hand crawls over a piano, scurries along the corridors and gets up to mischief in a cupboard. But there’s nothing supernatural about it – it’s all robotics. The video shows what this unusual robotic hand can do, why researchers find it fascinating and what it’s doing at Halloween. 

We welcome three new PhD researchers at EPG: Matilde Ciani, Felicia Rankl and Jonas Beck

Zoran Kovacevic successfully defended his dissertation Cognition in Social Networks: Framework Integration and Empirical Expansion

With nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, materials can be analysed to an atomic degree of precision. ETH Zurich is home to one of the most powerful NMR spectrometers in the world – and many of its research groups have now embraced this technology. 

A referendum has been filed against the revision of the War Material Act (KMG), which was passed by Parliament in December 2025. The technical and complex nature of the Act makes it difficult to discuss the specific changes to the text, to which reference is rarely made. The following analysis of the changes is intended to provide a more detailed understanding of the changes to security policy and their significance.

Many biological molecules are short-lived and ephemeral. Now, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an archive function that allows them to look into a cell’s past for the first time. This could allow scientists to get to the bottom of how cancer cells form.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an implantable system that clears excess glucose from the blood. The method has proved successful in the lab.

The ETH Board has elected Thomas Scheiber as the new Vice President for Infrastructure and Sustainability at ETH Zurich. The 46-year-old succeeds Ulrich Weidmann and brings more than two decades of management experience in running large-scale real estate and infrastructure operations. 

Präsentation von Prof. Dr. Andreas Kilcher, 18. November 2026

These robots have real muscles, and they’re finally making big moves. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed muscle actuators that flex strongly enough to enable small robots to jump, swim, walk and grasp.  

EPG started autumn with a productive retreat

Weather services and media outlets are issuing urgent warnings that a super El Niño is set to intensify extreme weather worldwide. Are the consequences really so serious? Climate physicist Nicolas Gruber puts the situation into perspective and explains what it could mean for Switzerland. 

Quantum computers only work when a control system reliably delivers algorithms to the hardware while immediately detecting and correcting erroneous calculations. The ETH spin-off Qendra is developing precisely these systems, making it a player in an expanding market. 

Military technology is advancing at a speed that established defence institutions struggle to match. Drones, AI, and autonomous systems can evolve within months, while doctrine, procurement, and force structures take years to change. The CSS Web Talk “Caught Between: Traditional Defence Bureaucracies and the Rise of AI-driven Warfare” highlighted these challenges and strategic imperatives. Michael Raska shares key takeaways.

Cheaper, better, more practical: Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new method for breaking down acrylic glass almost entirely into its individual chemical building blocks – without solvents or large amounts of heat. This brings the recycling of acrylic glass within reach. 

Around a year after the announcement of a generous donation by the Jörg G. Bucherer-Foundation, ETH Zurich opened the ETH Swiss GeoLab on 16 October. Numerous guests from the fields of politics, business and science visited the new site in Root near Lucerne.

Digital operations have become a routine feature of armed conflict, but they rarely produce the autonomous, decisive effects once associated with visions of “cyberwar”. Their significance lies instead in how they exploit, disrupt, or exercise control over the digital dependencies on which states, armed forces, and civilian populations rely.

Digital sovereignty is a highly ambiguous concept. Policymakers should separate its normative, economic, and geopolitical dimensions to balance competing interests and design coherent policy.

What do you get when scientists and engineers on a new degree programme join forces to tinker with new business models, concepts and case studies for the space industry? The Master’s in Space Systems has produced its first graduates, and they join the programme director to reflect on the journey.

When high-level political negotiations stall, local and civil society actors still try to sustain ceasefires on the ground. Yemen shows how important it is that international support does not crowd out such processes and that these efforts cannot substitute for the political settlement the country still needs, as the recent escalation underlines.

Microscopic bacteria can bind grains of sand together into solid structures. An ETH Zurich researcher is combining this process with 3D printing and robotics, thereby opening up new ways of manufacturing architectural elements.  

The cell nucleus stores and safeguards the genetic information in our cells. ETH Zurich researchers have now shown how this protective shell is breached to form vital communication channels between the nucleus and the rest of the cell, solving a long-standing puzzle. 

As climate change makes water an increasingly valuable resource, we need more sustainable ways of managing it in towns and cities, argues Eva Lieberherr. The technology to do so is already available. 

Tifanny Portela is doing her doctorate at ETH Zurich while competing with the Swiss national twirling team. She draws on her athletic background to handle setbacks, manage her time and stay focused. These skills also serve her well in her research.

The Swedish Royal Technology Mission, under the patronage of His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, visited ETH Zurich to learn how Switzerland turns scientific ideas into practical applications and strengthens Europe’s technological competitiveness.

Mechanical engineering students built an autonomous bike as part of a one-year Bachelor’s degree project. The AutoBike has the potential to help bike-sharing companies with bike redistribution in the future. This project gave the students the opportunity to develop the technology from concept to prototype. 

HYBRID MINDS

From the street straight into the battery: the ETH spin-off Winduction has developed a wireless charging system that charges electric buses via its wheels at bus stops. This technology is expected to significantly reduce the costs of running a bus line.  

Over the past three years, Thomas Zurbuchen, Director of ETH Zurich Space, has had a major impact on space research and education at ETH Zurich. He is now leaving the university to join US space technology company Blue Origin. 

Switzerland will host its first Union Civil Protection Mechanism exercise in autumn 2026. Its value lies not only in field cooperation but also in linking operational findings to the priorities of the Security Policy Strategy.

At 40, Chenying Lu from China realised her dream of earning a Master’s in architecture. As a teenager, she had planned to become a circus performer and saw university as a future goal she could always return to. In the video, she explains how she balanced her passion for acrobatics with her studies. 

A new teaching and research building, approximately 80 metres high, is to be constructed on the Hönggerberg campus starting in 2028. The building will provide much-needed space for computer science, the library and teaching, and is also set to become a public meeting place.

Glaciers are melting faster than ever before in Switzerland. New measurement data shows that Swiss glaciers lost more than 5 per cent of their volume in 2026, following a winter with little snow and record-breaking summer heatwaves.  

Military technology is advancing at a speed that established defence institutions struggle to match. Drones, AI, and autonomous systems can evolve within months, while doctrine, procurement, and force structures take years to change. The CSS Web Talk “Caught Between: Traditional Defence Bureaucracies and the Rise of AI-driven Warfare” highlighted these challenges and strategic imperatives. Michael Raska shares key takeaways.

Do AI systems really deceive us, or are we simply misinterpreting their behaviour? Anna Hedström, a researcher at ETH Zurich, studies AI risks, misplaced certainty and the limits of contemporary AI safety research. She also discusses how controllable highly capable AI systems really are.

Institutions and leadership have undergone profound changes since 2022 and hence led to a reorganisation of the European security order – but key factors shaping the continent’s security have also remained constant. Senior Researcher Dr. Gesine Weber shares key insights from her recently published study.

Cyber threats against the space sector are growing, but understanding of the threat landscape remains limited. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is scarce, difficult to access, insufficiently contextualised, and often unactionable. This open-source assessment finds a landscape dominated by attacks on ground infrastructure, hacktivism, DDoS operations, ransomware, and data theft. Yet what is visible today may represent only a fraction of the cyber activity affecting space systems.

Times Higher Education announces its 2027 World University Rankings. ETH Zurich remains among the world’s leading research universities in an increasingly competitive academic environment. 

The Agora project "Fired up!" will facilitate a multi-stage dialogue between science and society on the topic of wildfire preparedness. It builds on the findings of Christine Eriksen's SNSF-funded FiRES project to strengthen community wildfire resilience in Europe. The project responds to the growing need to complement top-down technical responses with social approaches that strengthen community preparedness and coping capacity through shared-responsibility measures.

Digital currencies are growing in importance – including stablecoins, whose value is pegged to traditional currencies. They could fundamentally change the financial system. But what can be done to ensure that money remains stable in an increasingly digital and tokenised world?  

At its meeting of 23 and 24 September 2026 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed eight professors.

The question to whether the Moon ever possessed an internal magnetic field is a matter of debate. Now, researchers at ETH Zurich have opted for a new method to show that a mechanism once existed on the Moon that is still active on Earth today.

New sample analyses by researchers at ETH Zurich point to a surprising origin for the asteroid Bennu: rather than forming far out in the Solar System, Bennu's parent body probably emerged in a special transition zone near the water-ice line, where temperatures were cold enough for water to freeze, at a time when Jupiter itself was still growing.