Research Programs
The Center's Research Programs support new cross-disciplinary and solution oriented research to address food system challenges.
ETH Zurich and EPFL launched the Future Food Initiative in 2019 together with Swiss food industry leaders Bühler, Givaudan, and Nestlé. The goal of the initiative is to expand research and education in the area of food and nutrition sciences. The Future Food Fellowship is a postdoctoral program for exceptionally qualified young researchers who propose projects targeting future food issues. The program has now funded twleve fellows working on diverse topics, made possible by 4.1 million CHF in donations from industry partners.
Learn more about the fellowship and the fellows: external page www.futurefoodinitiative.ch
The Smart Sustainable Farming Research Program aims to contribute to sustainable, innovative and competitive agricultural production and increase transparency from agricultural production to consumers.
With this initiative, fenaco is supporting the establishment of the Smart Sustainable Farming Research Cluster at the World Food System Center with a total of 1.2 million Swiss Francs over the next six years, thus enabling several interdisciplinary projects at the interface of agriculture, sustainable production systems, robotics and artificial intelligence. With this support, five to six projects are to be realized in a first phase. In the future, other industry partners may also participate in the research initiative.
The Improving Sustainability of Agricultural and Food Systems across Key Environmental Metrics Research Program enables new interdisciplinary research projects that will specifically aim to identify sustainable production practices and agricultural systems covering all sustainability dimensions, explore them along key metrics, and further improve their sustainability by minimizing tradeoffs with special focus on the environmental footprint and risks of production.
In the frame of this program, Bayer AG is supporting several interdisciplinary research projects of the World Food System Center with a total donation of 1.1 million Swiss francs over the next four years. The program is structured around calls that will fund postdoctoral projects of 2 years.
The Agriculture and Food Systems Research Program aims to improve sustainability of agriculture and food systems. Nestlé provided ETH Zurich with 2.8 million CHF of research funding in 2021 to support interdisciplinary projects in the outlined focus areas of agriculture and food systems. Several projects are currently funded by this program.
Research Funding Opportunities
The Center also seeks to find funding opportunities from various foundations interested in supporting food system transformation.
Research Funding Opportunity: Addressing environmental and human health risk of food systems
The aim of opportunity is to fund doctoral projects that demonstrate how specific key challenges and risks in the food system can be addressed. Encouraged are projects that show how research at the interface between fundamental and applied research contributes to different environmental as well as health issues.
Previous Programs
The Mercator Research Program on Organic Production Systems, funded by the Mercator Foundation Switzerland, supports research, education, and outreach that explores the role and potential of organic production systems (certified or non-certified) to contribute to global food security. Since 2011, 14 projects supporting 16 doctoral students have been funded.
All projects were subject to a rigorous evaluation by an independent academic panel with external reviews and an assessment process that took into account scientific excellence and relevance to the programs.
The Coop Research Program on Sustainability in Food Value Chains, supported by the Coop Sustainability Fund, enables research that addresses challenges and opportunities for sustainability in food value chains. Since 2013, 19 postdoctoral projects have been funded.
All projects were subject to a rigorous evaluation by an independent academic panel with external reviews and an assessment process that took into account scientific excellence and relevance to the programs.