Every year, thousands of tonnes of argan-shell residues are generated by Morocco’s argan industry. BIOEXTREME aims to transform this underutilised biomass into high-value engineering materials capable of operating under demanding temperature and impact conditions.
The research combines argan-shell particles with polyamide 11 (PA11), a bio-based polymer derived from renewable resources. While sustainable composite materials are attracting growing interest worldwide, very little is known about how they behave under extreme conditions such as impacts, crashes or large temperature variations.
To address this challenge, researchers from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) and the Private University of Health and Sciences of Agadir (UPSSA) will investigate how this new material performs under both high-speed mechanical loading and temperatures ranging from cryogenic conditions to elevated conditions. The project combines Morocco’s advanced dynamic testing facilities with Swiss expertise in materials processing and characterisation.
The project will provide new knowledge on how bio-based materials behave under demanding mechanical and thermal conditions, helping engineers design more sustainable components for future applications. Potential future uses include lightweight and sustainable components for transportation, infrastructure and industrial systems.
Beyond its scientific objectives, BIOEXTREME promotes circular-economy principles by transforming an underutilised agricultural residue into a high-value resource while fostering scientific cooperation between Switzerland and Morocco. The project will provide the knowledge base and collaborative framework required to prepare future joint funding applications and to develop a long-term research partnership in the field of sustainable materials for demanding environments.

Schools are increasingly expected to respond to diverse student needs arising from inclusion, digitalisation, and rapid social change. Consequently, collaboration among teachers has become essential for supporting student learning. However, effective collaboration does not emerge automatically. Teachers often work across different roles, areas of expertise, and professional responsibilities, making it challenging to identify relevant partners, coordinate knowledge, and sustain collaborative practices. This project investigates the role of middle leaders in supporting teacher collaboration by focusing on student learning. Middle leaders are teachers who occupy positions between school leadership and teaching staff, and often coordinate teams, departments, or school improvement initiatives. Their unique position allows them to connect with people, facilitate communication, and mobilise expertise across schools. This study brings together researchers from Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates to examine how middle leaders enact these brokerage activities in different educational contexts. Using semi-structured interviews with 40 middle leaders (20 in each country), the project explores how they establish and maintain collaborative relationships, how they perceive their contribution to student-centred collaboration, and which different patterns of brokerage can be identified. The project combines educational leadership research, social network theory, and activity theory to generate new knowledge on how schools can strengthen collaboration among teachers. Further, the study provides practical insights for schools, educational leaders, and policymakers seeking to improve collaborative activities regarding students’ learning. The project will also establish a foundation for a long-term Swiss–UAE research partnership and future comparative studies on leadership, collaboration, and school improvement.

Geoparks are environments of exceptional educational value, yet many geoeducation activities rely on maps and visual representations, which may create barriers for neurodivergent individuals—including those with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and specific learning difficulties—who often process spatial information differently and may benefit from approaches engaging multiple senses such as sound, touch, and movement alongside vision.
GEOPATH-IN, a joint Swiss–Moroccan project, addresses this gap by co-designing and piloting a multimodal spatial navigation prototype grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework promoting flexible, accessible learning for cognitively diverse learners. The prototype integrates GPS-triggered audio narratives, tactile elements, and movement-based wayfinding, and will be tested across two contrasting sites: the Parco delle Gole della Breggia (Ticino, Switzerland) and the aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark of Chefchaouen (Morocco), where canyons, waterfalls, and springs provide a rich setting for multimodal exploration.
The Swiss site provides accessible infrastructure for prototype development. The Moroccan site extends the prototype to a contrasting ecological and sociocultural context where outstanding geosites have been scientifically inventoried yet remain largely inaccessible to neurodivergent learners.
The partnership combines expertise in cognitive psychology, geography education, geoheritage science, and digital humanities, using place-responsive narratives linking storytelling to each site's sensory, cultural, and geological features. Neurodivergent adults and inclusive school classes will participate in piloting activities at both sites.
GEOPATH-IN is among the first initiatives to combine UDL, multimodal navigation, and neurodiversity-informed design within a geopark context, generating a practical tool and a transferable model for inclusive geoeducation supporting equity, participation, and environmental citizenship.

Housing of Internally Displaced Communities (HIDC), conducted jointly by the University of Basel and the American University of Beirut, examines how internally displaced communities in Lebanon are accommodated amid the recurrent escalations of conflict since 2023. The project traces four visible models of shelter provision in Greater Beirut: 1) government-supported emergency tent settlements; 2) roadside makeshift shelters; 3) public schools converted into accommodation spaces; and 4) sports facilities repurposed for humanitarian use. Rather than treating emergency shelter as a short-term technical fix, HIDC analyses shelter as a spatial and institutional arrangement through which displacement is managed, made visible, and prolonged. Drawing on debates on urban frontiers, displacement infrastructure, and humanitarian shelter, the project develops the concept of the “shelter frontier.” This concept describes a dispersed urban condition in which ordinary spaces (schools, stadiums, municipal land, religious sites, roadsides, tents) become provisional sites of assistance, regulation, monitoring, and constrained dwelling. HIDC examines whether and how shelter provision fixes displacement spatially and through governance, and how different shelter typologies affect privacy, safety, dignity, service access, and everyday household life. Through architectural documentation, ethnographic fieldwork, institutional interviews, and participatory mapping, HIDC will produce a comparative evaluative framework for analysing emergency shelter typologies in Lebanon. The project strengthens the Switzerland-Lebanon research partnership and generates empirical evidence to support more accountable, context-sensitive, and community-centred responses to urban displacement in Lebanon and the wider MENA region.

Agriculture faces growing challenges from climate change, soil degradation, salinity, plant diseases, and the environmental impacts of intensive fertilizer use. Sustainable alternatives that can improve crop productivity while reducing synthetic chemical inputs are urgently needed. This Swiss-Moroccan research project explores beneficial soil bacteria, namely actinobacteria, to develop biofertilizers that enhance crop health and resilience. The project builds on a collection of Moroccan and Swiss actinobacterial strains with the ability to promote plant growth and protect plants against diseases and environmental stresses. A particular focus will be placed on volatile compounds produced by these strains, which may help explain their beneficial effects. The project aims to identify the most promising strains, characterize their plant-growth-promoting and biocontrol properties, analyze their genetic and chemical features, and design microbial consortia that may outperform individual strains. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry will be used to characterize volatile compounds, while greenhouse experiments will assess effects on plant growth, drought and salinity tolerance, and disease suppression. Tomato will be used as the model crop, and Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight disease, as the model pathogen. A key aspect of the project is the exchange of knowledge and skills between the two partners, including the reciprocal training of Moroccan and Swiss researchers in the partner’s institution. By combining complementary expertise from both partners, this collaboration will strengthen scientific capacity and support future joint research initiatives. In summary, this project would provide a proof of concept for environmentally friendly biofertilizers that reduce reliance on chemical fertilizers while contributing to more sustainable, climate-resilient agriculture.

AI has great promise for educational use, especially individualized learner support in inclusive classrooms. However, teacher readiness (e.g., AI literacy, attitudes, and self-efficacy in using AI), is an important precondition for teacher adoption. TALIS 2024 (OECD 2025) shows striking between-country variation in teacher AI uptake (UAE ~75 %, OECD average 41 %, France 14 %). Switzerland did not participate, so no comparable national baseline exists. Also, there is a lack of data on AI use in teacher education, or on teacher readiness regarding pre-service teachers, especially regarding more targeted uses such as individualized learner support. 

This 12-month pilot (Dec 2026 – Nov 2027) compares pre-service K-9 teachers at the Bern University of Teacher Education (PHBern, Switzerland) and the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) regarding their attitudes, concerns, self-efficacy and intentions to use AI for individualized support of learners in inclusive education. Both partners co-lead instrument development, data collection (n ≈ 100 per site, regular + special-education tracks), joint analysis, and dissemination. The study's framework is based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Established teacher survey scales regarding AI (e.g., ATAI, MAILS) and inclusive education (e.g., CIES, TEIP) will be adapted for the study purposes.  

The project aims to give teacher-education programmes in both countries an evidence base for preparing teachers to use AI responsibly for inclusive education. Outputs include an openly released trilingual survey (German, Arabic, English) measuring teacher intentions to use AI for individualized learner support; a cross-country comparison of pre-service teacher intentions in Switzerland and the UAE, with a planned joint peer-reviewed publication; an international symposium at ECER 2027 (Debrecen); and a longer-term partnership on AI use in teacher education.

Lebanon faces critical environmental and public health challenges, especially in rural areas with limited access to wastewater treatment and sludge management. This project proposes a sustainable and circular solution by piloting decentralized pyrolysis of locally collected sewage and fecal sludge, converting waste into biochar for soil improvement and climate mitigation.

In collaboration with the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), and the Lebanese waste management firm CUBEX, the initiative aims to develop sludge-to-biochar value chains tailored to local contexts. Biochar, as a carbon-sequestering byproduct, aligns with Lebanon’s National Water Sector Strategy (2024–2035), which emphasizes decentralized wastewater solutions and sludge valorization. However, biochar and biochar products derived from sewage are not yet widely known. Thus, key activities include:

• Characterizing feedstock and potential co-substrates, followed by pyrolysis trials in Lebanon with additional validation in Switzerland,

• and conducting workshops and seminars in Lebanon and Switzerland addressing sustainable sludge management through pyrolysis, and the use of their products for a circular biosolids economy.

The project fosters academic-industry collaboration and youth engagement through joint research, student exchanges, and workshops. USEK and ZHAW will initiate long-term cooperation in environmental engineering and circular economy approaches, while CUBEX provides practical expertise and field access for real-world testing.

This initiative complements the REPIC-funded project “Decentralized biochar production based on climate friendly sludge processing,” enhancing its scientific foundation and scaling potential. By integrating applied research, technical exchange, and knowledge sharing between Lebanon and Switzerland, the project lays the groundwork for replicable, carbon-negative sanitation solutions with regional relevance.

Phosphorus is essential for food production, yet it is routinely lost through wastewater discharge while remaining poorly available to crops in calcium-rich soils. In semi-arid regions such as southern Tunisia, water scarcity drives interest in treated-wastewater reuse, while alkaline, calcareous soils further reduce the efficiency of conventional phosphorus fertilisers. P-REDOX LOOP will establish a new partnership between EPFL in Switzerland and the University of Gabès in Tunisia to test a circular solution linking water treatment, use of local agricultural residues and soil fertility.

The project will produce an iron-coated biochar from date stones (a carbon-rich material derived from a widely available Tunisian agricultural by-product), use it to recover phosphate from treated wastewater, and test its agronomic effectiveness as a controlled-release phosphorus source in Tunisian calcareous soil. The Tunisian team will prepare the material, conduct water-treatment experiments and run a durum-wheat pot trial. The Swiss team will determine how wetting-drying cycles transform the iron minerals and control phosphorus retention or release.

A transparent, data-driven modelling workflow will integrate the experimental results to identify the factors that govern phosphorus recovery and limit its loss. The partners will deliver a validated preparation protocol, mechanistic evidence, an agronomic proof-of-concept, a preliminary decision-support model, a joint manuscript draft and a roadmap for a larger Switzerland-Tunisia project. The work targets researchers, water and soil managers, agricultural stakeholders and institutions seeking resource-efficient solutions for water-scarce regions.

As the complexity and speed of emerging communication systems continue to increase in support of modern digital infrastructure, ensuring reliable data transmission becomes increasingly challenging, particularly because communication channels exhibit complex physical effects that are often simplified or overlooked in existing system designs.

This project brings together complementary expertise from Switzerland and Lebanon to investigate how physically consistent models of communication channels can improve the reliability and efficiency of future communication systems. The research focuses on high-frequency wireless systems, including emerging FR2 networks, as well as high-speed wired interconnects used in computing and communication hardware. The project will examine how the physical characteristics of communication channels influence the reliability of transmitted information and how this knowledge can be leveraged to improve error-correction techniques. By combining advanced channel modeling with modern decoding approaches, the project aims to develop new methods for generating more accurate reliability information while reducing computational complexity.

The collaboration includes joint research activities, researcher exchanges, student involvement, and knowledge-sharing events between the partner institutions. These activities will strengthen scientific cooperation between Switzerland and Lebanon while providing training opportunities for early-career researchers. Expected outcomes include new channel-modeling and reliability-assessment tools, pilot demonstrations in representative wireless and wired communication scenarios, joint scientific publications, and the development of a roadmap for future collaborative research and larger international funding initiatives. The project will contribute to more reliable and energy-efficient communication technologies while establishing a sustainable, long-term research partnership between the participating institutions.

Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive and difficult-to-treat brain cancers. Even after surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the tumour often returns, leaving patients and doctors with very limited options. A major challenge is that glioblastoma can protect itself by creating “safe zones” inside the tumour, where immune cells are blocked, weakened, or kept too far from cancer cells to attack.

This Swiss–Moroccan pilot project aims to uncover these hidden protective zones in glioblastoma tissue from North African patients, a population still under-represented in cancer research. Using advanced spatial mapping technologies, we will create detailed maps of the tumour microenvironment, showing where cancer cells, immune cells and tumour-supporting cells are located, how they interact, and how the tumour may escape immune attack.

We will combine these maps with AI-based image and data analysis to detect patterns that are difficult to see by eye. A key focus will be chromatin organization — the way DNA is packaged inside the cell nucleus — because it can reveal changes linked to tumour aggressiveness, immune evasion and treatment response.

One primary objective is to stratify glioblastoma patients based on their immune profiles, immune checkpoint expression and spatial chromatin organization. This may help predict which patients are more or less likely to benefit from immunotherapy.

In the long term, the project will lay the foundation for larger studies across North Africa and the wider MENA region, helping to make brain cancer research more inclusive, globally relevant and closer to patients’ needs.

Across the world, cities are spreading outward, and Algeria is no exception. Around its cities, new peri-urban areas have grown quickly to meet housing demand, often with little regard for quality of life — bringing environmental damage, car dependence, unequal access to services, and a lack of street vivrancy. For decades, planners have answered this sprawl mainly by building more densely, yet density alone has not delivered livable, sustainable neighbourhoods.

SPIRA explores a richer idea: urban intensity, which combines density with how compact, connected, mixed and accessible a place is. It asks a simple question — are more intense peri-urban areas also more sustainable? — and builds a practical way to measure it.

Working across about fifty peri-urban sites in northern Algeria, the project develops an Urban Intensity Index and compares it with an adapted measure of urban sustainability. It relies only on openly available data — satellite imagery, OpenStreetMap and official statistics — analysed with mapping and spatial-analysis tools. Because it uses data available almost anywhere, the method can be reused elsewhere.

Expected results include maps showing where peri-urban areas perform well or poorly, a reusable open database, and clear guidance and policy recommendations to help planners and local authorities steer growth toward more sustainable, livable cities. Beyond Algeria, the approach is designed to transfer to other Mediterranean and North African contexts, while strengthening a lasting research partnership between Algeria and Switzerland.

Bovine tuberculosis is an infectious disease mainly affecting cattle, but it can also be transmitted to humans. It is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium bovis. In many low- and middle-income countries, including Tunisia, the disease remains a concern for animal health, food security, and public health. In humans, it contributes to tuberculosis cases, commonly causing extrapulmonary forms of disease which are often difficult to diagnose and treat. However, important gaps remain in understanding how the bacterium spreads between animals and people.

This project brings together researchers from human and animal health to address this gap using a One Health approach. It focuses on studying M. bovis in Tunisia, where extrapulmonary tuberculosis is relatively common and the role of animal transmission is not fully understood. The main goal is to better understand whether and which M. bovis are shared between livestock and humans, and what this means for disease control.

To achieve this, the project will analyse bacterial samples collected from both cattle and human tuberculosis cases using advanced sequencing methods. These analyses will determine how closely related the bacteria are and whether transmission is occurring across species.

In parallel, the project will strengthen local expertise by training early-career researchers, laboratory staff, and public health professionals from veterinary and medical sectors in genomics and data analysis methods. This will enable local teams to independently analyse and use complex biological data for disease surveillance in the future.

The expected outcome is improved understanding of tuberculosis at the animal-human interface in Tunisia and the development of foundations for better coordinated surveillance and control strategies. In the longer term, the project will contribute to strengthening One Health approaches to infectious disease control in the region

Zebrafish Model for Microbiota-Driven Pathogen Virulence and Antibiotic Resistance Characterization