Strategy 2010-2016

The Strategy 2010–2016 of the North-South Centre was approved by the Steering Committee in November 2009. It positions the North-South Centre within the ETH Zurich by relating it to the ETH strategy “Shaping the Future – Strategy and Development Plan 2008 – 2011”. Furthermore, it refers to the international strategy “ETH Zurich in the Global University Landscape – International Strategy” and the strategies of individual departments, notably those with a strong membership base in the North-South Centre.
The strategy confirms the organisational structure and the three programme pillars of the business plan: “Research collaboration”, “Capacity development”, and “Networking and communication”.

The Strategy lays out the conceptual approach of “Research for development”.

Overall goal: Sustainable development for human well-being

Research portfolio – Four thematic research areas

• Food security
• Natural resource management
• Urban and rural transformation
• Technology and infrastructure
  

In addition, it alerts to three transversal topics, which cut across the four topics, namely “Gender”, “Good governance”, and “Impact generation”. 

Capacity development

With regard to capacity development, the strategy highlights the importance of individual capacity development as task of the North-South Centre. In the future, tandem student research projects and summer schools will be added to the current portfolio of instruments. Concerning institutional capacity development, we believe that we are most effective by strategically targeting and bundling our instruments for individual capacity development to build up specific institutions.

Networking and communication

In the area of networking and communication, the strategy specifically highlights the importance of strengthening the networks with our partner institutions in developing countries. Within Switzerland, our priority lies on the collaboration with the National Centre of Competence in Research North-South (NCCR North-South). Communication will remain an important pillar of the North-South Centre. As a competence centre the North-South Centre lives of its network capital. Therefore, its members need constant incentives and motivation to remain committed – for example new platforms to communicate their activities.