Initiatives & programmes

What we are implementing and driving forward in practice.

The ZHAW sees itself as a living lab for sustainable development: through research, education and knowledge transfer, it tests new approaches under real-world conditions and shares the resulting insights with society. Funding programmes, challenges, campaigns and action days create the freedom and space in which students, staff and industry partners can experiment and learn together.

The Sustainable Impact Program:
where ideas become projects

At the Toni Areal campus, a classroom is being transformed into a testing ground for wellbeing. In the Mekong Delta, a Bachelor’s thesis measures how plastic makes its way to the ocean. In Wädenswil, a project idea has evolved into a start-up that improves medication safety in care homes. The same programme stands behind all three projects: the Sustainable Impact Program (SIP).

Since its launch in 2021, the SIP has supported more than 92 projects across all ZHAW Schools, recorded over 1,400 participants and distributed in excess of CHF 1.6 million in funding. Four funding streams – the Student Project Fund and the SDG Thesis Award, the Living Lab Fund, the Instant Impact Fund, and Impact Entrepreneurship – support ideas put forward by students, staff and their industry partners all the way through to implementation.

In doing so, the programme brings people together, helps turn ideas into reality and creates opportunities for collaborative experimentation and learning. The SIP has long since become more than just a funding scheme: it is now the central platform for the culture and community of sustainable development at the ZHAW. Find out more.

People and stories

What is being tested here does not remain merely an idea. Staff and students are exploring within their own everyday university environment what sustainable action means and how it can be put into practice. These projects demonstrate how individual commitment becomes lived responsibility at the ZHAW.