Innovator Fellowships ETH Library Lab

Shape the Future of Scientific Information Infrastructure and Services

The ETH Library Lab Innovator Fellowship

Support for visionary talents. The Lab welcomes thinkers and doers, whose ideas have the power to reshape workflows and information environments for the future of science. As an Innovator Fellow you will be able to bring your idea to prototype level backed by inspiring mentors, experts and scientists.

Apply with your idea. We are looking for early-stage ideas, projects, practice or strategies, that:

  • relate to the life cycle of information for research and education
  • have the potential to form new approaches towards creation, dissemination, and preservation of information and knowledge
  • foster human learning and knowledge creation
  • depart towards solving actual problems within the scientific work cycle

Become a Fellow. We like to work with talents, who:

  • are determined to further develop an idea
  • welcome collaboration and are willing to co-create in an interdisciplinary team
  • think globally and are open to new perspectives
  • share the believe that advancing knowledge is serving the society
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Realize your Idea – As an ETH Library Lab Innovator Fellow you can benefit from:

  • Three to nine months as academic guest at ETH Zurich with a sufficient grant.

  • A working space and the infrastructure to focus on your project.

  • The chance to work with an excellent and diverse peer group.

  • The experience of the thriving ETH Zurich innovation ecosystem.

  • Support from mentors with expertise from many professional backgrounds.

  • Access to the ETH Library Lab’s expert network.

  • Method training for problem solving and product development.

  • A platform to promote your project and a real chance to make it happen.

Fields of research – Your project can be related, but is not restricted, to the following fields of interest:

One of the big challenges across the information cycle of researchers is dealing with the various stages of managing research data. Within this context, we support ideas and projects with the potential to create practices, models, systems and tools that: – reduce research data fragmentation and silos – increase data consistency – enable scientific data use by humans, algorithms and machines while protecting data privacy

Artificial intelligence-based systems are on the rise. They also will have a growing influence on scientific work processes. For that, a profound understanding of corresponding scientific needs is key to adjust existing library infrastructures and services, as well as building new ones, to allow assistance through augmentation and automation. Therefore, the Lab aims to identify of library related environments, use cases and processes, where the combined strength of humans and machines can lead to an improved outcome.

Scientific output is – most of the time – generated collaboratively. We support ideas and projects that explore possible ways of building or contributing to non-commercial digital spaces for students, educators and researchers. These spaces offer the opportunity to interact with, create and give access to research objects and results or can serve as a showcase for individual results of work.

Currently we observe a high level of creativity and innovation regarding processes, tools and platforms for validation and dissemination of scientific knowledge. These developments are fueled by the latest technological progress, most prominently by distributed ledger technologies (such as blockchain), and continuously spark interdisciplinary discourses, that libraries have started to join. The Lab aims at deepening this engagement of libraries at the juncture of information science and scholarly communication. It supports ideas and projects seeking to advance openness, fairness and efficiency within scholarly communication.

Preserving the past and present for the future is an ongoing endeavour. It needs joint efforts from many players. Universities as owners of collections, archives and museums have a long tradition of responsibly preserving and giving access to research objects considered as cultural heritage. We support ideas and projects contributing to a wider use and impact of scientific collections, archives and museums for the benefit of future generations of researchers and society as a whole.

Technological progress makes the learning environments of students, their related demands and expectations more complex than ever. On the one hand, the Lab promotes ideas and projects with solutions towards library-facilitated delivery and support for students working on campus, at home or abroad. On the other hand, it supports general explorations on how information infrastructure and services will need to respond to changing pedagogical concepts and environments within higher education.

Get in Touch – Not sure, if your idea is a fit for the Innovator Fellowship? Contact us.

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