Science in the city – Science Spot

23 million Swiss Francs, about 10 million pounds, is being donated by entrepreneur Branco Weiss to ETH Zurich with the aim of ultimately creating a Science City, a high-tech campus and city district for a Thinkers’ Culture.

Weiss is a chemical engineering graduate of ETH, class of 1951. His CHF 23 million donation will enable ETH Zurich to build a new Information Science Lab for research and teaching at ETH’s Hoenggerberg campus. The site will be expanded in coming years to create Science City, which ETH hopes will become a centre for Thinkers’ Culture.

Branco Weiss, Olaf Kuebler, and Gerhard Schmitt, Vice President of Planning and Logistics, ETH

The creation of Science City will help ETH fulfil its strategic aims of remaining competitive at an international level. With his generous donation, Dr. Branco Weiss is contributing substantially to the development of teaching and research in the key area of information science, said ETH President Olaf Kuebler, And, he is guaranteeing that Switzerland and its future generations will be able to keep abreast of the very latest in international research. Weiss explained how he has been closely associated with ETH Zurich for more than 50 years and wanted to make a major donation in the field where it is most needed. The new Information Science Lab is a very special and significant start, he said, at the donation ceremony.

The Information Science Lab will provide an interface between researchers and scientists working with information processing and simulation. Here, physicists, chemists, biologists, architects, computer scientists, engineers, and environmental scientists will carry out their research and teach as well as having open access to other important research centres around the world. Among the new lab’s facilities will be 480 office workstations for researchers and 750 workstations for students.

ETH Hoenggerberg

Weiss’ donation will cover half the costs of constructing the shell of the facility and building work will begin in 2005. ETH anticipates the opening of the new lab will take place in 2006 and once it is operational, the Science Lab will become the cornerstone for Science City. Over the course of the next few years, ETH Hoenggerberg will be thus become both a high-tech campus and a city district with student residences, a learning and convention centre, a guest house, restaurants, shopping and sports facilities. The master plan will be presented by September 2004 with the year 2010 being the date ETH hopes Science City will become a reality. Construction of Science City will cost around CHF 250 million, about £108 million. ETH is now exploring new avenues for financing the project and hopes to attract sponsors and donors to fund the work.

Artist’s impression of Science City

Further reading