New in the Agricultural Science study programme: «Innovation in Precision Agriculture»

Innovations are currently being developed worldwide (including Switzerland) to advance the conventional practice of plant cultivation with the help of digital tools. «So why not teach the topics as well?», asked researchers at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences at ETH Zurich. As a project of ETH Studio AgroFood, an important player in the development of the curriculum for the changing digital agriculture, they developed the new course.

Goal: Design prototype

Students of Agricultural Sciences acquire a fairly broad basic knowledge in the various subjects of the Bachelor's programme. Having said this, opportunities to apply this knowledge during the course of study are particularly important. With the new course, a pilot project, the students should now develop concrete ideas in the dynamic environment of the digitalisation of crop cultivation.

«The aim is to enable students to proactively shape Agricultural Sciences and their applications for the future», explains Eduardo Pérez, researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences and co-founder of the new course. Already during the phrasing of a concrete problem, the students will get feedback from agricultural practitioners and have the opportunity to undergo a kind of reality check, according to Pérez. In the ten-week course, the participants generate their own ideas and develop them further to a first draft of a prototype.

First steps to start-up

Introductory lectures, but most importantly teamwork supported by mentors from different areas, form the didactic framework of the course. Guest lecturers from ETH, Agroscope, HAFL and the Start-up area will support the students. Particularly important is the close collaboration with Dr. Jana Thiel (D-MTEC), Daniel Böhi (Founder Institute), Judith Zimmermann and Maria Håkanson (Student Project House), who offer various opportunities to further develop the project ideas into start-up initiatives.

The number of places in the newly designed course is limited to 16 participants. Students of the Bachelor's degree programme who want to participate must first apply with a letter of motivation.