History

The center has been established in January 2020. The center is part of the ETH Future Learning Initiative (FLI) leverages and builds upon our existing strengths in secondary and higher education to develop the world’s leading center for research in the science of learning and advance ETH’s reputation as the globally leading learning institution.

The department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (D-ITET) is uniquely characterized by its diversity of research coupled with a full vertical span of theoretical and design expertise and experimental facilities, from materials to full-systems. The aim is to complement and enhance project-based learning activities with a centralized structure at the departmental level. With this, it will be possible to offer larger and interdisciplinary projects for students on all levels of their study, as well as for highly talented high-school pupils in their final years. The center will reflect the wide and interdisciplinary nature of the D-ITET research groups (from the quantum scale (“electrons”) to full networks). We envision the center as a very dynamic environment, where the projects and even types of projects pursued change constantly from year to year.

Effectively, the initiative builds additional capacity in project-based education and with respect to critical thinking at ETH. The interdisciplinary nature of the student projects enables the involvement of all groups of D-ITET and collaborating departments within ETH. The primary motivation for this newly created center is the benefit for students working on projects offered around this center.

The centre will be open to collaborate with scientists that plan to carry out longitudinal studies on the effectiveness of new engineering education interventions, potentially following graduates into the workforce as well. Complement and enhance project-based learning activities with a centralized structure at the departmental level. The project will also synergically collaborate with other FLI projects, such as Advancing Interdisciplinary in Life Science Education and Mixed Reality for Enhanced Lab Courses.