Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)

18 Oct Future Education Switzerland

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2009
In the future, over two thirds of a class should gain a qualification for tertiary education. At the same time the development of interpersonal skills need to be supported. Education should not just provide the knowledge to perform professional duties; it should also provide a deeper understanding in order to deal appropriately with the world and society. This is what the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences are proposing in their under the lead of SATW established white paper “Zukunft Bildung Schweiz” (Future Education Switzerland). It defines the requirements on the Swiss education system in 2030 using a scenario to describe the future understanding of education in Switzerland. Based on this it makes recommendations on the Swiss education strategy and describes its implementation in a roadmap.
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18 Oct STEM Careers Barometer

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2014
The STEM Careers Barometer is a Swiss study investigating several questions based on the sister study by the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). Its main objectives are to determine people’s motives for choosing or rejecting studies or a career in the STEM subjects, to gain insights into how students and those employed in STEM areas perceive their study routine or career progression, and to examine whether interest in studying STEM subjects at school has changed over the years. Any divergences from the results of the acatech study Career Barometer for Science and Engineering are also of interest. For this reason the concept and methods used in this study closely followed those of the acatech study. In the STEM Careers Barometer, three groups of people were surveyed in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland in summer 2012 by means of questionnaires. These groups were: school pupils at secondary stages I and II (N = 3,507), students of STEM disciplines, and also for comparison of economic sciences (N = 1,598), and people in employment, again predominantly in STEM areas (N = 945). Generally it can be stated that the results of the Swiss survey align with those of the German study in many areas.
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18 Oct Fostering informatics education German

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2014
Information and communications technology (ICT) may be viewed as the key technology of the 21st century. According to a report published by the Technische Gesellschaft Zürich, over 80% of current jobs in Switzerland require more or less thorough knowledge of ICT. Healthcare, finance, transportation, the machine industry, chemistry – i.e. all the technology-based professions – would by now be inconceivable without ICT. It would therefore seem logical for informatics to also play a significant role in schools. Yet this is not the case: ICT education is close to non-existent in Swiss schools. With the exception of the canton of Solothurn, at the level of compulsory education there are few content-related directives and even fewer obligations to provide classes in media education and informatics. At gymnasium level, informatics is only offered as an elective course. Even the “Lehrplan 21” (the planned common curriculum for compulsory education in German-speaking cantons) involves no major changes: in its structure, informatics only appears in a subsection. The term “informatics education” covers the academic topics linked to computers: informatics, computer technology, ICT applications and others. This terminology, which originated in Germany, allows for a comprehensive view of relevant educational contents relating to ICT and for the formulation of coherent and level-appropriate educational concepts. Informatics education aims not only to train pupils as users but to turn them into veritable agents.
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18 Oct The potential of augmented reality in education

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2015
Im September 2014 trafen sich Fachleute unterschiedlicher Fachbereiche wie Vermittlung, Pädagogik, Technik, Kunst, Design und Kulturwissenschaften zu einem SATW-Workshop, organisiert von der Pädagogischen Hochschule der FHNW. Sie beschäftigten sich mit der Aufgabe, Nutzen und Herausforderungen von Augmented Reality für die Bildung herauszuarbeiten. Als Resultat des Workshops ist diese Broschüre entstanden. Sie informiert darüber, was unter Augmented Reality zu verstehen ist, welche Rolle die Technologie in der schulischen und musealen Vermittlungstätigkeit einnehmen kann, und stellt schliesslich konkrete Umsetzungen aus dem Schul- und Museumsbereich vor, die in der Schweiz realisiert wurden.
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18 Oct Online Education – Connected Education

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2016
The Internet plays an increasing role both in terms of teaching material and of preparing classes. The SATW topical platforms edu-tech and ICT have conducted a number of workshops on the topic of “Cloud computing in education and research”, aiming to deepen the dialogue among experts of all levels of education, educational authorities and institutions, specialist platforms and networks, as well as selected members of the cloud computing community. In this context, an issue of SATW INFO was published. Theme: Demography, Education, …
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18 Oct Resilient Data Handling

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2016
Handling data in a safe and resilient way is possible. In order to do so, however, citizens must take on an active role and acquaint themselves with the basics of cyberspace. The publication “Resilient Data Handling” provides an overview of five important topics in this context: data management, archival storage, confidentiality and secrecy, big data analytics, and privacy. The state must also step in. The following topics are addressed in this context: open government data, IT and critical infrastructures, and cybercrime.
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18 Oct Arable crops: a source of renewable raw materials

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2010
Once the easily accessible reserves of oil are exhausted, plants will become increasingly important as an industrial resource. For this reason there will probably be a renaissance in wood, linseed, straw and other plant products as raw materials. The objective of research and development should be to optimise the practicability of production processes and the usefulness of the end products. There is a great need for research into the relatively new area of transgenic plants which could in some cases deliver specific high quality substances. We should be thinking about bio-refineries rather than oil refineries. Our most important task will be to improve public perception of such technologies and to consider the social consequences of introducing them and their implications for the overall safety of foodstuffs, not only in industrial nations but also in developing countries.
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18 Oct Synthetic biology – A new engineering science emerges

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2011
Synthetic biology is the attempt to create cells with specific properties. It is about to establish itself as a new engineering science. This brochure wishes to help to expound the opportunities and risks presented by this scientific area about which very little is known by the general public as yet. The discipline is in its infancy, and the results that have been achieved to date seem rather to be an extension of previous work in genetic engineering. However, scientists have already succeeded in synthesizing a whole genome of a bacterium and introducing this into a foreign bacterial cell envelope. The “new” bacterium exhibits the properties of the introduced genes. Researchers are concentrating their efforts on the development of minimal cells. These contain only the essential genes needed for cell growth and are intended to serve as a chassis for other newly developed genes and functions. The brochure opens with a philosophical contemplation which provides a counterpoint to the scientific viewpoint by questioning the extent to which that which is living can be described, and thus engineered. In the other contributions, important concepts in synthetic biology are discussed and concepts introduced by which the complexity of biological systems can be reduced. This is an important prerequisite for their commercial exploitation.
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18 Oct Biotechnology for all

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2015
Biotechnological research is no longer limited to specialist laboratories: a growing community of biologists, amateur enthusiasts and technophiles is experimenting in kitchens, workshops and DIY laboratories. Some people view the democratisation of biotechnology as a threat, others as an opportunity to gain a better understanding of complex scientific interrelationships within society. A few years ago, something which occurred in software development in the early 1990s also began to emerge in the field of biotechnology: “open source” and “do-it-yourself” (“DIY”) strategies are opening up a field of knowledge traditionally occupied by experts, universities and large companies to a broader community. In 2008, a handful of technology enthusiasts in Boston set out to drag biotechnological research out of established institutions into garages and kitchens in urban and rural settings. Since then, Europe, the USA and Asia have seen the emergence of dozens of garage laboratories with scales, mixers, refrigerators and incubators, all purchased cheaply from eBay. Some laboratories are also equipped with homemade bioanalytical devices. Inquisitive laymen and experienced researchers conduct experiments shoulder to shoulder, pursuing personal biotech research projects or simply indulging in the satisfaction of DIY.
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18 Oct Renewable instead of fossil resources

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Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
2015
The current price of oil lessens the urgency of replacing fossil with renewable base materials. Yet due to oil’s finite nature, one day this replacement will become inevitable. Addressing this issue today, launching and intensifying research and development activities, therefore represents a major opportunity for Switzerland. Thanks to its academic institutions, its existing infrastructure and its industry, the country is starting from a good position despite difficult economic framework conditions. The new SATW brochure “Renewable instead of fossil resources – An opportunity for Switzerland” describes the current state of technology as regards the production of basic materials, active substances and reusables. It makes the distinction between quasi-available technologies and processes as yet only existing at a conceptual level. It also addresses the necessary and promising industrial combination of biotechnology and chemistry. The survey ends with biorefineries, which in Switzerland have not yet moved beyond the conceptual stage. The brochure closes with a brief list of conclusions and four recommendations, which one can only hope will meet with constructive interest within industry, politics and the population at large, so that this “opportunity for Switzerland” may truly be seized.
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