Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development
Main Focus
Sandec conducts research on innovative, evidence-based methods, best practices, and technologies that improve and enable access to inclusive, sustainable sanitation, water and solid waste infrastructure and services for low- and middle-income countries. Our aim is to support, inform, and impact research, education, policy, standards, and practice towards achieving the SDGs. We do this by:
- Collaborating globally with universities, research institutions, NGOs, governmental bodies, humanitarian agencies and development organisations
- Fostering international transdisciplinary partnerships with the public and private sectors to develop and test applied research at household, community, city-wide, national and regional scales
- Offering capacity development, education and training by providing knowledge support, curricula development, workshops, courses and blended learning programmes
- Communicating, publishing and disseminating our research, knowledge and training tools and making them openly accessible
Our five strategic research themes are:
Strategic Environmental Sanitation Planning
Our aim is to develop sanitation strategies and concepts that are socially, culturally and technically appropriate in urban and peri-urban settings.
Municipal Solid Waste Management
We focus on innovative solutions for the appropriate treatment of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste.
Management of Excreta, Wastewater and Sludge
We address three main challenges in faecal sludge mangement: optimisation of treatment technologies, innovation in resource recovery, and methods for sustainable system level implementation.
Water Supply and Treatment
We develop sustainable and cost-efficient approaches for measuring and improving drinking water quality.
Water Safety Management
We develop and evaluate appropriate solutions that strengthen access to and enhance the consumption of safe drinking water in vulnerable households in low income countries.