Annual Report 2006/07 - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

An introduction to ZILcall had to cut back their budgets to varying degrees. All newprojects are presented individually on the following pages.The new project portfolio has a strong focus on the environmentaldimension of the programme structure, with a numberof projects dealing with agroforestry or forestry-related issues.Therefore, it was most pertinent that the Annual Conference2006 focused on this topic, as presented in the special chapterby Dennis Garrity and colleagues (p. 14). Five of the eight newprojects represent groups of the ETH Zurich which had neverparticipated in the ZIL programme before (some of them newlyrecruited professors). Three of these new ZIL projects are led bycolleagues from the Department for Environmental Sciences,one is co-supervised by a member of the Department forAgriculture and Food Sciences, and in another one, a professorfrom the Department for Civil, Environmental and GeomaticEngineering collaborates. This composition indicates that theZIL research programme goes far beyond traditional agriculture,stretching into the fields of food, health, environmentand engineering.Programme developmentWhile the new projects (phase V) took up their activitiesbetween July 2006 and June 2007, the phase IV projects werein their final stages. All doctoral dissertations will be concludedin 2007 or early 2008.In the reporting period ZIL benefited from the two overlappingproject phases, most obviously at the Progress Fora in March2006 and June 2007. At both events a good number of projectpartners participated, permitting lively interaction among andbetween project teams. As in the previous year, Peter Reinhardfrom Agridea (former LBL) acted as facilitator and again stimulatedengaged participation of all attendees.6