Albert Lück-Stiftung funds projects on future-oriented infrastructure

D-BAUG will focus its teaching and research on three major challenges in coming years, seeking to contribute new approaches to sustainable development: increasing urbanisation, changing environment and future-oriented infrastructures. Researchers in the latter field aim to develop innovative approaches that will ensure the functioning of civil-engineering infrastructure and create smart infrastructure designs through digital innovation and artificial intelligence.

Implementing the founder’s will

According to the will of its founder, civil engineer Albert Lück (†1974), the purpose of the Albert Lück-Stiftung is to support teaching, research and studies in civil engineering at ETH Zurich. “Having spent the last few years primarily funding professorships and professorial projects, we are pleased that the new Albert Lück Grant will support interdisciplinary projects of doctoral researchers at D-BAUG. It is a new funding instrument that will help us implement our founder’s will,” Raymond Cron, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Albert Lück-Stiftung, commented.

“The donation from the Albert Lück-Stiftung to our department is the continuation of a generous tradition,” Paolo Burlando, Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, emphasised. “It will help us make our vision and mission of engineering a sustainable world come true.

We intend to foster interdisciplinary lighthouse projects that can contribute to solving the major societal challenges facing us in the new millennium. The funds from the Albert Lück-Stiftung will be a significant help in this endeavour.” Adrian Berger, Managing Director of the Albert Lück-Stiftung, sees great potential in this field: “Our modern, complex society depends on powerful infrastructure. The Albert Lück Grant is a contribution to making that infrastructure fit for the future.”

Long-term funding

The latest donation to D-BAUG through the ETH Foundation constitutes the seventh round of funding since 2007: the foundation has previously supported outstanding Master’s students in civil engineering, the Chair of Structural Mechanics (Professor Eleni Chatzi), the Chair of Urban Water Systems (Professor Max Maurer), a research project on timber structures (Professor Andrea Frangi) as well as the project “Stocks and Flows” of the Institute of Preservation and Construction History at the Department of Architecture.