Education

Our educational activities involve lectures, seminars, and mentoring of students who write their theses and term papers–or work as student assistants with us. We contribute especially to the Agricultural and Environmental Science BSc and MSc programs at ETH.

Our teaching equips students with the knowledge, theory, methods, and excitement to understand how policy, institutions, technology, and research contribute to addressing key social and environmental challenges in global food systems. Progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainability Goals (SDGs) is not possible without considering the various ways in which agriculture and food systems are contributing to and affected by environmental and social challenges such as the over-exploitation of natural resources, malnutrition, inequality, labor exploitation, climate change, and food waste and loss.

In our classes, we teach students about the latest public debates and research on these topics. We also discuss which policy instruments are available to tackle different sustainability challenges, which theories provide the rationale for or against different policy options, and how research on these topics is conducted—or where it is lacking. We discuss these topics featuring the implications for, and decision options of, diverse actors such as farmers, workers, cooperatives, companies, NGOs, policymakers, researchers, and other actors concerned with agricultural production and food systems.

Similarly, we support MSc and BSc students to address key sustainability challenges in their theses. Theses in our group typically focus on topics closely related to our group research agenda, so that students gain first-hand insights into, and can contribute to, the latest research and methods in the field. MSc students typically work with data, either collected in the frame of internships or generated through our projects. We also offer options for students to gain insights into research as student assistants in our team, allowing them to strengthen and apply their skills.

We are committed to fostering an interactive learning environment that encourages discussions, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to enable the next generation of leaders in agricultural, food, and environmental occupations to find new solutions for pressing sustainability challenges in food systems.