Joined-Up Study

A number of initiatives, teams and departments have emerged at UZH in recent years, dealing with interdisciplinary questions, topics and challenges, and developing transdisciplinary courses. To promote cross-disciplinary teaching and combine these efforts under a common roof, UZH set up a School for Transdisciplinary Studies (STS) at the beginning of 2021.

The STS’s initial portfolio comprises five modules, which are open to students from all faculties. Designed to supplement Bachelor’s and Master’s programs, the courses enable students to consider their own subject in relation to others and to capitalize on academic differences.

The students also acquire skills that are becoming increasingly important to employers, such as the ability to link up different viewpoints, to consider problems from different perspectives and to work in interdisciplinary teams. The focus section of the new UZH Journal presents these new transdisciplinary courses.

In this issue you can also find out about:

• Which research findings by UZH researchers made the biggest splash in the media in 2020.
• The effects that the coronavirus pandemic has had on student exchanges.
• Which goals Caroline Maake and Jan Helbing have as co-presidents of the Association of Senior Researchers and Teaching Staff (VFFL).
• How the Humanities Initiative wants to raise the profile of the humanities and highlight their societal relevance.
• Why medical historian Flurin Condrau sees the current crisis as a chance to rethink the role of medicine in society.
• And what jazz musician and composer Nik Bärtsch has to say about his time at UZH.