UZH introduces five new research priority programs

With its five new University Research Programs (URPP), UZH seeks to foster cross-disciplinary cooperation between researchers in an effort to “promote innovative research areas that are relevant for the future and help researchers break into new terrain,” Beatrice Beck Schimmer, Vice President Medicine and member of the UZH Executive Board, said in a press release.

The URPP Equality of Opportunity will investigate the economic and societal changes that give rise to inequality. The researchers of this URPP will also analyze concrete legal frameworks and political measures that help to increase equal opportunities for all members of a society.

With the URPP Human Reproduction Reloaded, researchers will examine historical, sociological, legal, medical and philosophical developments around human reproduction. A particular focus will be on recent productive medical procedures.

The URPP ITINERARE: Innovative Therapies in Rare Diseases – Challenges and Opportunities aims to promote the development of new therapies to treat rare diseases. It will also work to create a network that can answer ethical, legal and pedagogical questions around the treatment of rare diseases.

The URPP Digital Religion(s). Communication, Interaction and Transformation in the Digital Society will investigate how digitalization is changing the religious practices of individuals and institutions, as well as how religions can assert their claim to interpretation in a wide range of matters, including health and artificial intelligence.

The aim of the URPP Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning to examine the development of neural networks and how they impact specific behaviors in different animal models and in humans. In this way, the research team hopes to gain new insights into what causes learning disorders in children and adults.