I am Chloé, and while many space paths seem to point towards the USA, NASA or JPL, I felt drawn to Japan, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and a culture I knew would challenge me far beyond science. As part of the first cohort of a new programme, there was no established exchange path yet, so getting here meant searching, asking, hoping and slowly finding my own way.

Then Prof. Louise Harra from PMOD/WRC connected me with Prof. Toshifumi Shimizu at JAXA/ISAS, who accepted me as a student on a SOLAR-C related project studying the Sun and space weather. I was incredibly happy, but also thought: “Okay, now this is actually happening.”

The months before leaving were intense: visa papers, housing, exams and goodbyes all came at once. I chose to live in Tokyo to fully experience the city, knowing it would be overwhelming. I left Switzerland excited and nervous, hoping the path would start to make sense once I walked it.

Arriving in Japan was beautiful, but also very humbling. One of the first big challenges was the language. Japanese is not only a new language for me, but also a completely different writing system. Actually, three writing systems. Before coming here, I had learnt hiragana and katakana, but suddenly I was standing in front of a washing machine covered in kanji, trying to understand how to do laundry with Google Translate and AI. It sounds funny now, and in some way it was, but in that moment I realised how many simple things become difficult when you are far away from home.

My commute to JAXA/ISAS in Sagamihara became a daily lesson in humility, from taking the wrong train between local, (semi) express and rapid express lines to navigating Shinjuku Station like an escape room until, after two weeks, I finally found my way to work.

At JAXA/ISAS, I was welcomed with so much kindness, but being a student surrounded by experienced researchers and scientists can still feel intimidating. In my thesis meetings, several supervisors, postdocs and senior scientists join to discuss my progress, and although I am grateful for their support, I sometimes feel a quiet pressure to prove that I belong there. After one of my first meetings, I felt completely overwhelmed and out of place, unsure of my results, my words and whether I belonged in science at all. I wanted to talk to someone, but with the language barrier and my lab friends speaking Japanese, even sharing that frustration felt difficult. That day, I went home angry at myself, lay in bed and seriously wondered whether I should return to Switzerland.

I think this is one of the most honest parts of my journey here. I am still learning how to take up space in the space world. Not as someone who already knows everything. Not as someone who is always confident. But as someone who is curious, hardworking, sometimes overwhelmed, and still trying.

And then there are the small moments that make everything feel warmer. Every morning, a Japanese student in my lab teaches me a little kanji. We talk about our days, our weekends, our favourite things, and slowly I learn more than just characters. I learn small pieces of language, culture and friendship. In the afternoon, we often have oyatsu, a snack time where people gather, share sweets and talk. Sometimes I learn a new phrase. Sometimes I try to guess the meaning of a kanji. Sometimes I just listen and enjoy being part of it.

My lab also has a tradition of bringing souvenir snacks from trips. Each snack is recorded in a book with its origin and taste. I really love this. It is such a small thing, but it says so much about the group. These small rituals have helped me feel less like a visitor and more like someone who is slowly becoming part of a place.

Not every day feels easy. Even after three months, the language barrier still makes me feel lost, and I still doubt myself sometimes. But almost halfway through my stay, I also see myself changing: finding my way, asking more questions, and learning that feeling unsure does not mean failing.

This journey is about more than my master’s thesis at JAXA/ISAS. It is about finding courage in small moments, following a path that was not clearly laid out for me, and slowly making it mine.

We are Vivian, Bene and Florian, all students at ETH Zurich. Vivian is currently finishing her master’s thesis on data centers and their impact on Switzerland’s energy system. Bene is a PhD student in the Molecular Engineering Thermodynamics (MET) Group, where he focuses on modelling interfaces for sustainable technologies. Florian is a PhD student at the Chair of Ecological Systems Design, working on defossilisation in the chemical industry.

CERAWeek is often described as the “Super Bowl” of the energy industry” – and this year, we got tickets. From the moment we arrived, it became clear why CERAWeek has such a reputation. The event was enormous: the exhibition and conference area felt as large as 15 football pitches, making the “Super Bowl” comparison surprisingly accurate. Everywhere we looked, there were workshops, panel discussions, informative sessions and opportunities to exchange ideas. Conversations happened constantly – between sessions, in hallways, at receptions, and often when we least expected them. Our LinkedIn networks grew quickly, but more importantly, we made meaningful connections with industry experts, policymakers, and researchers.

Even before the official program began, the mood was set. At the pre-conference reception on Sunday evening, it became clear which topic would dominate the week: the Strait of Hormuz and the ongoing global oil crisis. It was striking to witness such a historic moment from inside one of the world’s most important energy gatherings.

At the same time, the geopolitical situation also revealed how narrowly the energy trilemma can be framed in times of crisis. Questions of security and supply clearly took center stage, while climate change and the long-term transformation challenges facing the energy industry often faded into the background. It was striking to observe how strongly a fossil-based narrative was reinforced throughout the week in Houston, with limited attention given to the transition toward renewable energy, despite well-documented risks that continued fossil fuel extraction poses to the climate. That made academia’s presence all the more important and we are glad to have contributed to the debate by participating in discussions and by presenting our research. One of our key takeaways from the conference was how naïve it is to expect the fossil fuel industry to drive emission reductions on its own. Instead, we were reminded that only strong and consistent policy frameworks will enable achieving climate targets.

We are also very grateful to the NextGen organization team at S&P Global, who made us feel welcome and supported throughout the week. Their openness and hospitality made the experience especially memorable. A big thank you as well to ETH Studios for making this trip possible.

Of course, our time in Houston was not limited to the conference itself. We also had the chance to explore the city and enjoy a bit of local culture: from a baseball game and the Houston Space Center to salsa dancing and Texas BBQ. CERAWeek 2026 was an intense, eye-opening and unforgettable experience. We left with new ideas, new contacts and friends, and a stronger sense of why academic voices matter in shaping the future of energy.

In my role as Chief of Staff to the President, I have had the privilege of observing how ETH Zurich’s president, Joël Mesot, builds on and further develops the institution’s existing strengths. Step by step, this approach is helping to shape strategic directions that transform the university into a future-ready and resilient institution—one that is increasingly able to serve society in a world defined by growing complexity and uncertainty.

One illustrative example is ETH Zurich’s investment in the thematic area of space. At first glance, this may appear as a highly specialized scientific domain. Yet, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that space is not just a field of research — it is a strategic lens through which many of ETH Zurich’s ambitions come together.

There are four key reasons why this focus makes strategic sense:

• First, space is an environment where boundaries are continuously tested and extended. Each technological or scientific advance opens up new frontiers, while simultaneously deepening our understanding of Earth itself, from climate dynamics to planetary systems.

• Second, from an economic perspective, space stands out as a rapidly growing sector expected to sustain strong expansion over the coming decades. This growth is driven by innovation in satellite technology, the rise of data-driven applications, exploration, and emerging commercial models that increasingly position space as critical infrastructure for the global economy.

• Third, space missions and technologies demand an exceptional level of precision, reliability, and long-term robustness. While costs are undeniably significant, the real challenge lies elsewhere: in building systems that function flawlessly under extreme conditions over long periods of time. This engineering mindset closely aligns with Switzerland’s broader strengths in precision, quality, and reliability.

• Fourth, by developing strong capabilities in the space domain, ETH Zurich positions itself as an even more attractive destination for outstanding talent, from students to early-career researchers and established professors alike.

To translate this ambition into action, ETH Space serves as the key vehicle for implementation. It can be understood as a cross-cutting strategic platform that brings together research, education, entrepreneurship, industry collaboration, and science diplomacy. In doing so, it is closely aligned with ETH Zurich’s broader strategic framework and institutional priorities, and it enables their coordinated implementation in practice.

In particular, ETH Space strongly reinforces the priority of «Advancing and promoting the fundamentals», as space research naturally brings together fundamental science, advanced engineering, long time horizons, and high technological ambition. It also closely reflects the priority of «Mastering the continuous blurring of boundaries»—between engineering and science, academia and industry, civilian and governmental actors, as well as national and international collaboration.

ETH Space plays an important role in strengthening ETH Zurich’s international visibility and strategic positioning. It reinforces the university’s role in frontier science, European research ecosystems, and high-impact technological innovation. In this sense, ETH Space is not only an organisational structure, but also a strategic narrative: it helps articulate ETH Zurich’s ambition to contribute to solving grand challenges at a planetary scale.

In the coming months, we will publish a series of stories from colleagues at ETH Space, opening up their work and the exciting questions they are pursuing. Together, these perspectives will show how ETH Space contributes to ETH Zurich and beyond.  

Space invites us to rethink and to wonder. It is a perfect topic for public engagement, dialogue, and science communication, helping to make complex developments accessible and relevant to a broader public. ETH Zurich is seizing these opportunities, for example by launching wow², a new event that brings ETH Zurich and its research to life, and creates opportunities for direct encounters and conversations between researchers and visitors.

On 30 May 2026, wow² Space invites you on a journey into space: from lava tubes on the Moon to distant galaxies where stars are born and fade away — and back again to our blue planet, where satellites help us detect forest fires early, measure movements in the ice of the Alps, and even find our way to the nearest café. You can take a look behind the scenes of the missions that expand our understanding of space — and sharpen our view of Earth.

We warmly invite you to join us and rethink living!

What does it take to explore the universe, understand our planet from above and imagine life beyond Earth?

At ETH Zurich, these questions are not confined to research papers or laboratories. They come to life through people, projects and conversations. wow² Space, taking place on 30 May 2026 at ETH Zurich Main Building, offers a unique opportunity to experience exactly that.

When we think about space, we often picture distant galaxies or future missions. At wow² it becomes tangible, relevant and connected to our everyday lives. The event brings together a wide range of perspectives, from environmental monitoring on Earth to the search for life beyond our solar system.

wow² Space is an open invitation to everyone to discover space research and science up close, get inspired, ask questions, and experience on 30 May at ETH Zurich how research is shaping our future view of space.

Science Through the People Behind It

Verena Griess explores how satellite data and artificial intelligence help us detect environmental changes, offering new ways to understand forests and ecosystems. Adrian Glauser takes audiences on a journey through the universe, explaining how modern telescopes reveal phenomena that remain invisible to the human eye.

Space exploration becomes more concrete through the work of Elena Krasnova, who works on robotic systems designed for lunar missions, and Simon Stähler, who provides insights into Mars exploration and the ongoing search for signs of life.

The programme also highlights how space is increasingly connected to global questions. In a live podcast session, David Vogel discusses the geopolitical dimensions of space together with Felix Seidel and Leonid Leiva Ariosa.

Experiencing the Universe

Beyond talks, wow² Space creates immersive experiences that make complex topics accessible. In the mobile planetarium, visitors are guided by Urs Scheifele and Matthias Hofer through the solar system and beyond. From the phases of the Moon to the structure of our solar system and the life cycles of stars, these shows bring astronomical phenomena vividly to life and make them accessible to all age groups.

From ideas to future scenarios

wow² Space also invites participants to actively engage with future possibilities.

Workshops led by the FUTURIUM explore questions such as how we might live on other planets or manage the increasing number of satellites in orbit. Through storytelling and hands-on prototyping, participants can develop their own visions of the future and make them tangible.

Inspiring curiosity across generations

The event places a strong emphasis on engaging younger audiences and families.

Guido Schwarz introduces children to the history of space exploration, while Lia Sartori explains how scientists search for life beyond Earth. Interactive workshops encourage creativity and experimentation, supported by contributors such as Hanna Sathiapal, André Csillaghy, Lukas Schmid and Muriel Stiefel.

Additional activities are offered by initiatives like mint & pepper and the Academic Spaceflight Initiative Switzerland, where participants can build rockets or explore robotics.

When Science Meets Entertainment

In the evening, wow² Space takes on a different tone.

The show BLACK BOX Space combines science with humour and performance. Hosted by Patrick “Karpi” Karpiczenko and Mirko Bischofberger, and featuring Sascha Quanz and Deborah Müller, it explores big questions about space in an engaging and entertaining format.

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It’s not every day you get to meet in person a fellow Swede who happens to also be a rockstar in the world of climate science, and a generally lovely human being. Having witnessed him in action previously in grand speaking arenas including TED and the World Economic Forum, it was a bit surreal to find myself on stage next to him, co‑moderating our Global Lecture on “Taking the Pulse of the Planet.” I am talking about none other than the legend that is Johan Rockström, the man behind the Planetary Boundaries Framework and co-creator of the recently launched Planetary Health Check. My colleague Chris Luebkeman and I were joined by ETH Assistant Professor Millie Chapman to hear from and talk to the man himself on the occasion of the inaugural Climate Week Zurich.

Here are the most important things he had to say in an hour that flew by and was by no means enough to go through everything that needed to be said on one of the key topics of our time.

We are living in the Anthropocene, a new geological age in which human activity fundamentally shapes the Earth system. Humanity and nature are now fully intertwined, co-evolving across planetary scales. This means that the stability of our societies is inseparable from the stability of the Earth’s life-support systems.

That stability is increasingly under pressure. Already today, with an increase by around 1.4°C since the pre-industrial era, extreme events are already disrupting lives and livelihoods worldwide. Beyond this, risks accelerate non-linearly: tipping points are hard-wired into the Earth system, and crossing them could trigger cascading feedback loops. This raises the possibility of a “hothouse Earth” trajectory well beyond the 2-3°C pathway currently projected, and ultimately beyond conditions in which modern societies can function.

These dynamics point to a deeper issue: the erosion of Earth’s resilience. Systems such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) illustrate how destabilisation could produce profound and uneven regional impacts, while also feeding back into the global climate system. Importantly, these processes are interconnected: disruptions in one part of the Earth system amplify pressures elsewhere.

The Planetary Health Check provides the clearest scientific diagnosis to date. It tracks the state of nine critical Earth system processes, the “vital organs” that regulate stability and resilience, and shows that seven of nine planetary boundaries have now been breached, with pressures continuing to intensify. These boundaries function as guardrails for a safe operating space: once crossed, the Earth system moves into a zone of increasing risk, where tipping points, irreversible change, and loss of resilience become more likely.

What emerges is a stark but actionable insight: the planet’s “vital signs are flashing red”, yet the framework also shows where intervention is possible. Because these systems are tightly interconnected, stabilising the Earth system requires coordinated action across climate, biodiversity, land, water and pollution; not in isolation, but as part of a whole-Earth approach to staying within a safe operating space for humanity.

Millie Chapman brought in the decision-making dimension linked to the issues highlighted by Johan to the fore, by sharing her work at the Environmental Policy Lab of ETH Zurich. She examines how policies, institutions, and digital technologies shape outcomes for people and ecosystems. The work is structured in 3 focus areas:

Cooperation across scales: understanding what drives coordinated environmental action across actors, sectors, and governance levels. 

Decision-making under uncertainty: designing robust, data-informed strategies and policies that remain effective despite complex ecological and social uncertainty. 

Justice in an algorithmic era: examining how data and digital tools shape environmental decisions, with a focus on fairness, accountability, and bias.

Her point was that how decisions are made matters; the information decision-makers have to hand, on which to base their decisions, is the key to them developing effective and equitable strategies to meet global biodiversity targets. Data and algorithms can potentially reshape our management of environmental systems, and AI can help us move towards more sustainable and just futures in the context of environmental justice.

The well-attended event could have gone way past the scheduled hour, as was highlighted by the large number of poignant questions from the audience we did not manage to get to at the end. We closed the evening with a touch of optimism to add to the sense of urgency. Climate Week Zurich is a nice example of the local community getting together with global representatives from business, research and policy to accelerate climate impact in everyday life. Our event was a fitting addition to the inaugural schedule of activities taking place around the city, illustrating ETH Zurich’s commitment to sustainability.

Check out the pictures from the event here: Meet ETH Flickr

I hope this glimpse encourages you to come to a future event. I find that with our Global Lecture Series, we begin a new journey every time, giving ourselves pause to reflect on key topics on the global agenda and learning from individuals with remarkable clarity and foresight. I invite you all to come and join us! The next event will be on 10 September on the topic of research, with Nature’s Magdalena Skipper and ETH Zurich’s Annette Oxenius.

April 8, 2026 – Inspired by an Instagram story posted by ETH, we – three students from different fields, at different points in their studies – decided to participate in the EAGLE Hackathon at SLF. Each of us wanted to gain insight into a thus far foreign field of research.

Mass movement pose a risk for infrastructure and people living in alpine regions. With climate change, these turn even more unpredictable. Therefore, it is important to have working monitoring systems to prevent infrastructure damages and evacuate areas where mass movements might occur. The EAGLE project at SLF focuses on detecting mass movements using radar data from satellites.

The three of us – Bhawana, Lilian, and Sujani – worked on current challenges that the EAGLE project at SLF faced regarding their Machine Learning (ML) based analysis of mass movements. Trying a new arrangement, we worked five of the six weeks remotely, with occasional checkpoints, after which we spent a week in Davos for the finalisation of our project.

Coming from different educational backgrounds, we combined our strengths to work on the main issues. First, the new ML model, insarpy, needed to be integrated into QGIS. After that, the model was to be adapted to accept user inputs to modify the predictions. Having completed these tasks, we decided to additionally improve the user experience when working with the QGIS plugin. Lastly, we attempted the final task of containerisation using Docker.

As the project culminated with the stay in Davos, we wanted to experience as much as we could in the given time. Since our time there fell just before Easter, we got to experience the typical Easter-time snowfall. Making use of this, some of us went on a walk in the snow, enjoying the beautiful scenery. Others tried out cross-country skiing. On the not-so-nice days, we made use of our cozy apartment, for instance by watching movies or baking.

“Coming into this project, I had no prior experience in this domain. But getting to apply data science to real data, with all its messiness and errors, taught me so much more than any classroom could. The learning environment was incredible, and for me it was a chance to step into a new field and see how data science actually works in practice” – Bhawana Bhawana

“Coming from a non-coding background, this internship was a great opportunity for me to get a glimpse into the everyday life of programming – experiencing the struggles and rewards that researchers and data scientists have on a daily basis.” – Lilian Obrist

“This project was a nice introduction into working on real life issues in an interdisciplinary team.” – Sujani Mugunthan

All in all, the project gave us the opportunity to apply our skills on a new and interesting topic, and to learn new things that fall beyond our fields of study. We learned, that sometimes, not everything works at first try and about the power of brainstorming. In addition, we were able to experience Davos in its fullest “winter” beauty.

When people hear “net zero”, they often think of targets far in the future or abstract policy debates. Managing the ETH Net Zero Programme, I experience it quite differently: as a daily, collective effort that touches infrastructure, laboratory work, travel decisions – and, above all, people.

That is why the ETH Net Zero Day has become such an important moment for us. Once a year, it creates space to pause, take stock and make visible what is otherwise spread across projects, departments, and campuses.

ETH Zurich launched the ETH Net Zero Programme in 2024 not as a short‑term reaction to regulation, but as an expression of its responsibility as a public university. The goal is clear: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions consistently and credibly, with an ambition to strive for net zero emissions across all relevant areas by 2040. This is not a single project, but a long‑term transformation process embedded in governance, infrastructure and everyday decision‑making.

What makes the Net Zero Day special is its diversity. The programme features more than 20 events: from campus tours showcasing state-of-the-art heat pump technology and modernized buildings to workshops on design thinking and sustainability handprints. There are talks, exhibitions, and informal exchange formats, spread across different locations and organised by a wide range of units and individuals.

For me, this diversity reflects the core idea behind the ETH Net Zero Programme: climate protection is not owned by one unit or working group. It emerges where technical solutions, organisational change and individual decisions intersect. The Net Zero Day creates space for exactly these encounters – between students, researchers, technical and administrative staff who all contribute in different ways.

The day is also an invitation to engage, ask questions and connect. Whether you are deeply involved in sustainability topics or simply curious to learn more, there is something to discover – and many opportunities to join the conversation.

If you are interested in seeing what institutional climate action looks like from the inside, I warmly encourage you to take part.

You can explore the programme and register for the events at www.ethz.ch/net-zero-day

I’m looking forward to the exchanges – and hope to see you there!

This summer, I took on something completely new: clustering algorithms. I had never worked with them before, but during a six-week internship at the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF), I had the chance to dive in and learn. I was part of the Hydrology and Climate Impacts in Mountain Regions (HYCLIMM) group, which focuses on understanding how hydrological extremes and climate interact in mountainous regions.

The topic of my internship built on something I knew a bit about – droughts in rivers – which I had explored during my bachelor’s thesis. But this time, the goal was to go a step further: develop a method to group drought events from the past 40 years based on how they were formed – their hydrometeorological generation processes. These can be a precipitation, storage or snowmelt deficit, high temperatures and increased evapotranspiration, or a combination thereof. After creating the clusters, I would then explore them in more detail: when and where do they happen? How long do they last? How severe are they? And how have they changed over time?

The internship took place in Davos, and I was able to stay there the whole time. That gave me the chance to get to know the team and get a better feel for how they work. It also meant being surrounded by mountains, which made for some great weekend hikes and quiet evening bike rides.

When I arrived, my supervisor Giulia Bruno welcomed me warmly and helped me settle in. The team was kind and open, and some routines – like regular lunches together or afternoon coffee and cake – helped me feel included. I appreciated these small things, and they helped me feel at home quickly.

One of the trickiest parts of my project was the explorative nature of it. There wasn’t a clear roadmap to follow. The first few weeks were all about figuring out what kind of data the clustering algorithm needed to do a good job. As I soon realized, a clustering algorithm is only as good as the data you give it. So, I spent a lot of time selecting and preparing data – trying to feed the algorithm with the “right food,” as I liked to think of it.

What helped was being able to talk things through with the team. They took time to discuss my questions and offered new perspectives. Slowly, things started to make more sense. The clusters began to show meaningful patterns from a process-oriented perspective, and I started asking more focused questions:

• What processes lead to certain clusters?
• Are some more common in specific areas or seasons?
• Has the frequency or severity of these clusters changed over time?

Getting to that point felt rewarding, especially after the initial uncertainties. It also made me more comfortable with the idea that exploration – and sometimes getting stuck – is part of the process.

Beyond the technical skills – like learning how to use clustering methods and improving my programming – this internship also taught me something more personal: how to deal with frustration. Some days were tough, especially when things didn’t work as expected. But over time, I learned to be patient and to trust the process. By the end of the internship, I felt a bit sad to leave. The team had been so welcoming, and I had learned much in such a short time. But I was also proud of what I had achieved. The work I did opened up some follow-up questions, and maybe I’ll get the chance to explore those further, possibly in a master’s thesis.

My name is Lauren, and I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory for Mesoscopic Systems at the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich. Our research focuses on magnetic materials – systems that underpin many technologies we rely on in our daily lives. These span from computers to sensors and radio-frequency electronics. One of our lab’s central missions is to develop new magnetic materials and architectures for more efficient data storage and processing, which is what attracted me here back in 2022.

Before I joined, a former lab member, Zhaochu Luo, developed a remarkable method to pattern magnetic anisotropy—that is, to control the direction of the magnetization. Traditionally, the magnetization aligns along a single axis (for example, south-north), but his work demonstrated that it could also be engineered on the same surface along an orthogonal direction (for example, east-west). Beyond the fundamental interest, this opened the door to storing and processing information in the same physical location – an approach that could significantly reduce energy consumption and accelerate computation. The work sparked significant excitement in the community and led to a patent.

At the heart of this breakthrough was a clever material trick: selectively oxidizing the surface of the material using through a lithographic mask. With this trick, we realized that, with this single material change, one can achieve fascinating things. However, while very impactful, this method is limited to a relatively small class of materials, which are largely outside of the technologically relevant materials. When I arrived in Zurich, my goal was to expand this concept to a broader range of systems, particularly for applications in magnonics, a field that uses spin waves to carry and process information, offering a potential low-energy alternative to conventional electronics.

I had a clear vision, supported by an ETH fellowship—but one critical question remained: How could we pattern magnetic properties without relying only on oxidation?

The answer emerged unexpectedly. After weeks of thinking about this question, I gathered my colleagues in our meeting room to brainstorm. During that discussion, a simple but unconventional idea surfaced: What if we used our direct laser writer—not for lithography, as intended—but to locally heat the material? It sounded pretty crazy. The tool was designed to pattern light sensitive resists for further lithography processes, not to locally heat materials. Yet the tool allows precise control of laser power, and therefore of the heat induced in the material.

Curious, we decided to give it a go. Within days, together with my colleague Jeff, we tested the idea on different materials we had prepared so far. To our surprise, it simply worked. Instead of heating entire samples in an oven for hours to anneal them, we could now modify properties on nanometer length scales and on nanosecond timescales. Over the following months, we expanded this approach to new material systems and even developed grayscale patterning, where magnetic properties vary continuously across the surface and in complex patterns. This opens up new possibilities for device design and could be readily adopted by other researchers using similar tools. Looking back, what stands out is not just what we achieved, but the process we went through to get to the final result. Our progress came from open discussions, from being willing to challenge conventional wisdom, and from exploring simple ideas in unusual ways. Stepping outside one’s comfort zone and engaging with others can be just as important as having technical expertise. And often the most effective solutions are not the most complex ones, but rather the simplest ones, seen from a different perspective.

Some Global Lectures stay with you long after the Audimax has emptied and the final applause has faded. The recent special edition of the ETH Global Lecture Series, Choices, was one of those evenings. Conceived as a tribute to our colleague Chris Luebkeman on the occasion of his retirement from ETH Zurich, this lecture also became a thoughtful reflection on agency, foresight and how the future is shaped by the choices we make.

Chris Luebkeman: choosing to matter

In his lecture, Chris invited us to see choice not as a single decisive moment, but as a continuous and cumulative force shaping individual lives, institutions and societies. Moving between historical moments, professional inflection points and personal stories, he argued that while we do not control all the forces acting on us, we are never without agency.

Drawing on examples ranging from the mid‑19th century to his own journey across engineering, architecture and strategic foresight, Chris showed how many of today’s realities emerged from decisions taken without certainty of outcome. Futures, he reminded us, are rarely inevitable; they are the result of layered choices, made consciously or unconsciously, inherited or hard‑won.

A recurring theme was the idea of “normal”. What we experience as normal, Chris suggested, is deeply contextual; it is shaped by geography, culture, history and circumstance. There is no single baseline from which the future unfolds. This insight lies at the heart of his approach to foresight: not as prediction, but as a disciplined practice of paying attention, identifying weak signals and expanding the range of possible responses.

He also spoke movingly about the role of universities. Beyond advancing knowledge, institutions like ETH Zurich serve as compasses for society: places where difficult conversations about uncertainty, responsibility and long‑term impact can be held thoughtfully. Through the Strategic Foresight Hub and the Global Lecture Series, Chris has helped open such spaces, encouraging more courageous engagement with what lies ahead.

On foresight, bias and collective agency

In conversation with Aaron Maniam, Fellow of Practice and Director of Digital Transformation Education at the University of Oxford, these ideas were sharpened and expanded. Together, we explored what foresight really entails, and what it does not.

Both stressed that foresight is firmly rooted in the present. It is not about forecasting or crystal‑ball gazing, but about creating awareness and preparedness. One idea that resonated strongly was that good foresight should help leaders and institutions avoid being shocked by change. Surprise often triggers reactive decision‑making; preparation preserves optionality and enables more deliberate action.

We also spoke candidly about bias. Neither choice nor foresight is neutral. The goal is not to eliminate bias but to surface it, question it and counterbalance it through collective reflection. Productive discomfort, as Aaron noted, can be a sign that futures work is doing its job.

Finally, we touched on one of the defining choices facing societies today: how to navigate the unequal effects of technological change, particularly in relation to artificial intelligence. While new technologies promise significant gains in productivity, those benefits will not be evenly distributed. Choosing to engage with these tools without addressing their social implications risks deepening existing inequalities.

Chris closed our exchange with a reflection that felt both personal and universal: time is the most finite resource we have. How — and with whom — we choose to spend it shapes not only our own futures, but the world we help bring into being.

Choices was not a farewell, but an invitation: to remain attentive, collaborative and intentional about the futures we continuously co‑create, one choice at a time.

Check out the pictures from the event here: Meet ETH Flickr

And in case you missed it, watch the talk here:

I hope this glimpse encourages you to join us at a future event. I find that with our Global Lecture Series, we begin a new journey every time, giving ourselves pause to reflect on key topics on the global agenda and learning from individuals with remarkable clarity and foresight. I invite you all to come and join us!