Consumption decisions are personal and based on one's own preferences, possibilities and values. Everyone has his or her own consumer ethical values and ideas according to which he or she wishes to act. But are they being implemented?
A large proportion of Swiss people state that they also pay attention to sustainability in their purchasing ...

Escape Rooms and Outdoor Missions are booming: Electronic scavenger hunts, foxtrails, geocaching, or mobile phone trails are a popular leisure activity among young families or young people. Our new "Eco Missions" offer is designed to do justice to these new leisure activities. In an eco mission, the various aspects of these offers (puzzles, ...

Agricultural production, consumption, trade of food, etc -- the Swiss food system is as complex as it is central to our daily lives. Our food supply has a greater impact on the environment, economy and society than almost any other area of life. And yet we are not very familiar with the structures and mechanisms that outline food in Switzerland.
To ...

Rhizobia are bacterial symbionts associated with legumes that are of paramount importance for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen in the soil. The success of this process (and ultimately the performance of the plant) depends on the type of root nodule bacteria, which should be adequate to each plant species. The objective of this project is to ...

High throughput sequencing technologies have permitted a wide range of scientists to observe an astonishing molecular diversity across all domains of life. Since all observed molecular sequences area result of a long evolutionary history, most informative inferences can be made only when analysing genomic sequences from an evolutionary perspective. ...

Sustainability should not remain an abstract buzzword. Using innovative communication methods, with interactions between the population and research and with opportunities for open dialogue is to be brought to life in the incubator on Campus Grüental. There, the population has the opportunity to inform themselves, contribute their views and ...

A new garden on the topic of soil ecology is to be created on the Grüental campus in order to promote fascination and appreciation for the natural resource soil. The garden is designed as a mysterious place that arouses curiosity and lets visitors literally immerse themselves in the ground. In it the various functions of the soil can be experienced ...

Despite its recent re-emergence and increased prevalence in many countries, the research on Xanthomonas hortorum species-level clade members has been very limited until now. It is thus important to have an increased knowledge thereof to be able to react to its increasing occurrence. Therefore, the overall aim of the SNF funded project called ...

AAL-solutions and AI becomes more and more of interest for care and senior living facilities. However, this often very small entities lack access to and the know-how of how to use and introduce these solutions. In addition, transitional care and with that the 'Hospital at Home' asks for new care logics with new partners and settings to involve.

AA ...

The broad-host range plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum is a treat for Swiss agriculture and therefore classified as quarantine organism. The current detection methods are, however, cumbersome. Testing surface water at strategic sites, especially downstream of locations where potential host plants are present, appears as an efficient tactic to ...

Grapevine genetic resources are maintained in field collections being challenged by repeating biotic and abiotic stresses. Plant adapt to stress by increased mutation rates. Hence, long-term field collections may not be optimal to maintain original cultivars (and clones in grapevine). This project will quantify cryopreservation process-induced ...

Taking into account different personality types in aquaculture and re-stocking measures for open water is important, since the specific characteristics of the animals determine their fate. But different personalities are assumed to be important for the different purposes for which fish are raised. However,  personality traits have not yet been ...

Switzerland is not supplied with sufficient amounts of protein for feed production, but has to import the main proportion from other countries. Duckweed can show high growth rates and protein contents on diluted manure and can reach production rates per squaremeter which are comparable to commonly used terrestrial plants. However the harvest of ...

Globalisation of the food trade leads to various impacts on the economy, the environment, and society. Emerging economies that have expanded their agricultural trade and have become net agricultural exporters are particularly affected. The proposed research collaboration aims at combining interdisciplinary research expertise from Switzerland and ...

Despite major breakthroughs in the identification of new promising drug candidates, translating these findings into the clinic is often hampered by challenges in delivering an efficacious drug dosage to the site of the disease. In an effort to address this challenge, researchers are deciphering the natural communication pathways in the human body, ...

Development of a novel immunization method in rabbits that improves the generation of antibodies against the native form of human proteins e.g. cell surface receptors. Subsequent validation of the method through functional characterization of candidate therapeutic antibodies in vitro and in vivo. The aim is the discovery of monoclonal antibodies as ...