Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

Preparation of wastewater samples for virus monitoring at Eawag (Eawag, Andri Bryner)

The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) has been newly commissioned by the Federal Office of Public Health as the National Reference Centre for Wastewater Monitoring. This work centres around the collection of health data from municipal wastewater, and particularly that of viruses that are known to be pathogenic. A new national mandate has also been introduced for the analysis of substances related to pharmaceutical and illicit drug use.

ETH Zurich presents Lisa Deutsch with the ETH Medal for her doctoral thesis, which she wrote at Eawag and ETH Zurich.(Photo: Sabine Hoffmann)

Institutional

ETH Medal for Lisa Deutsch

January 26, 2026

Sociologist and political scientist Lisa Deutsch was awarded the ETH Medal for her doctoral thesis written at Eawag and ETH Zurich. Her research demonstrated how interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research can be successful and how theory and practice can be effectively combined in research.

A landfill site in Vietnam (Photo: Dorian Tosi Robinson, Eawag)

News

Plastic pollution: From Phu Yen to a global solution

January 12, 2026

A new study provides precise data on the origin of plastic in the sea. It could be key to reducing this pollution in a targeted way.

Wenn mit öffentlichen Mitteln erarbeitetes Wissen «Open Access» publiziert wird, kommt es auch wiederum allen zugute. (Foto: iStock Natali_Mis)

Institutional

Eawag is a pioneer in open access to its research

January 6, 2026

For years, Eawag has been committed to ensuring that its research findings are "open access" – in other words, accessible free of charge. Within the Swiss higher education landscape, its proportion of scientific publications that are open access is therefore among the highest.