ANNUAL REPORT 2020
College of Humanities
ANNUAL REPORT 2020
College of Humanities
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) EPFL is located in Lausanne, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva and at the foot of the Alps. Its main campus serves as the workplace for more than 16,000 people, including 11,000 students. Established in 1853 under the name Ecole spéciale de Lausanne, it was rebranded as the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 1969. In welcoming students, professors, and collaborators from nearly 120 different countries, EPFL is among the most cosmopolitan of European engineering schools. With both a Swiss and an international focus, three missions drive EPFL today: education, research, and innovation. EPFL is composed of five schools and three colleges.
CONTENTS
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
F OR EWOR D BY THE DE A N ABOUT THE CDH E D U C AT IO N RESEARCH PUBL IC OU TR E ACH FINANCES AND PERSONNEL IN T ER DIS CIPL INA RY C O L L A B O R AT IO N M A P S
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
FOREWORD BY THE DEAN
FOREWORD BY THE DEAN
I am pleased to present you with the College of Humanities’
all of us, and the fact that we were able to achieve so much
second annual report. Now in my third year as the dean of
despite the numerous challenges speaks to the extraordinary
CDH, I continue to be amazed by the vibrancy of our institution
dedication of our staff and the ingenuity of our researchers.
and the outstanding quality of our scientific research. Our College gave nearly 150 classes in 2020 on a variety of As we headed into 2020, we were full of energy and looking
topics in the humanities and social sciences. Through our
forward to a busy year. However, we quickly had to adjust to
instruction on topics ranging from history and law to psychology,
the new circumstances caused by the global pandemic. Some
economics, design, international studies and anthropology,
of the activities we had planned could unfortunately no longer
EPFL students learned how societies work, what responsibilities
take place. For example, we had to close EPFL Pavilions, our
they will have as scientists and engineers, and how they
exhibition center (formerly known as ArtLab), for many months,
can think more creatively within their own disciplines. We
and cancel our STAS minor program, which had been taking
also introduced several new classes in 2020 on such key
students to conduct field work in China and the Arctic over
issues as the future of work, critical data studies, personalized
the past few years. All our classes were shifted online and our
and global healthcare, artificial intelligence and international
research was often done from home. It was a difficult year for
law, and digital urban history.
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FOREWORD BY THE DEAN
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
2020 was another excellent year for research at CDH. Four
At CDH, we are continuously exploring new frontiers at
of our PhD students passed their final exams with flying colors,
the interface of the humanities and the technical disciplines
while 20 new students joined our Master’s in Digital Humanities
at EPFL, such as engineering, architecture, the basic
program. Florence Graezer Bideau started a project funded
sciences, life science and computer science – thereby
by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) on the use
further contributing to EPFL’s broad culture of excellence.
of cultural heritage at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games; several of our researchers successfully applied to the CROSS
I hope you will be intrigued and inspired as you read through
program, whose topic in 2020 was Mobility; and a unique
our report.
CDH research project on the relationship between music and imagination received a competitive SNSF-Spark grant. We were delighted to welcome Prof. Jeffrey Shaw, a renowned
Yours sincerely, Béla Kapossy
media artist, as our first CDH visiting professor. Our artists in residence for 2020 were Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson, who together helped design a major installation for our Nature of Robotics, an Expanded Field exhibition that opened in December. We also put on a string of other remarkable cultural events, such as an exhibition at the Rolex Learning Center on perspectives of utopian cities and a workshop on Soundpainting given by Walter Thompson.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
ABOUT CDH
ABOUT CDH EPFL’s College of Humanities (CDH) encourages joint research and teaching programs that combine the humanities and social sciences with technical fields taught at EPFL, such as engineering, life science and the natural sciences. We work through a variety of educational, research and public-outreach programs that promote the principles of interdisciplinary thinking, global awareness, responsible citizenship and creativity. The humanities and social sciences are fundamental elements of an engineer’s education and development, meaning CDH has a vital role to play at EPFL. We help engineers further expand their view of humanity and their understanding of global societal affairs. Our programs give them the skills they need to deal with unpredictable change and unprecedented challenges, think critically, solve problems, innovate and lead. At the end of 2020, CDH had 75 employees as well as six faculty members and 129 teachers who gave 148 classes on a wide variety of topics. We also house two research institutes – the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI) and the Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) – along with ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions and the CDH-Culture program, which puts on a range of artistic and cultural events.
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Collège des Humanités - Rapport annuel
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
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THE TEAM
THE TEAM
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
THE TEAM
COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES DIRECTOR'S OFFICE
INSTITUTE FOR AREA AND GLOBAL STUDIES
KAPOSSY BÉLA
Aeberli Marius Coordinator of the DRIL, FIELD and INSSINC programs
Professor and CDH dean Aghroum Nicole Financial and administrative manager Cornut Jasmina Scientific assistant Coscia Claire-Lise Administrative assistant Dahmouni Martin Néjia SHS program coordinator Dungy Madeleine Scientist Elsig Alexandre Scientist Farget Christine Administrative assistant Global Issues program Faucherand Gilles Computer scientist Gannac Anne-Laure Journalist Krichane Selim Scientist, Gamelab co-founder, and pedagogical design coordinator Lovis Béatrice Scientific assistant Luterbacher Celia Journalist Martin Nunez Virginie Communication manager Mauron Layaz Véronique Scientist and CDH culture manager Rochat Yannick Scientist and Gamelab co-founder Rochel Johan Scientist Sidorenko Semion Computer engineer Tejada Gabriela Academic deputy Tormey Roland Scientist
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KAPOSSY BÉLA Professor and IAGS director
Bianchi Irene Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine Bolli Monique Doctoral assistant Bordone Lucia Doctoral assistant Di Lenardo Isabella Scientist and Lausanne Time Machine coordinator Gonçalves Martin Johanna Scientist and LIFE program coordinator Graezer Bideau Florence Senior scientist and Heritage, Culture and City group coordinator Hoesli Eric Professor and coordinator of the STAS Russia program
Roux Héléna Doctoral assistant Theurillat Thierry Scientist Tschui Raffael Scientific assistant, CHIC and STAS China programs Zhang Mengke Doctoral assistant
DIGITAL HUMANITIES INSTITUTE KAPLAN FRÉDÉRIC Professor and DHI director SÜSSTRUNK SABINE Professor and DHI director Collins Kathleen Deputy of section Gatica-Perez Daniel Professor and section director Impett Leonardo Doctoral assistant Pidoux Jessica Doctoral assistant
Hügli Isabelle IAGS administrative assistant
Salzmann Mathieu Scientist
Khayankhyarvaa Ariunzaya Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine
Vassalli Jocelyne Administrative assistant
Laperrouza Marc Scientist and coordinator of the DRIL, CHIC and INSSINC programs Nault Charmilie Scientific assistant, STAS Russia program Petitpierre Rémi Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine Pollet Ludovic Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine Puissant Pierre-Xavier Scientific assistant, DRIL Rappo Lucas Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine
SOCIAL COMPUTING GROUP GATICA-PEREZ DANIEL Professor and SCG director Labhart Florian Research associate, guest at CDH Massé Benoit Postdoctoral researcher, guest at CDH Meegahapola Lakmal Doctoral assistant, guest at CDH Phan Thanh Trung Postdoctoral researcher, guest at CDH Sajadmanesh Sina Doctoral assistant, guest at CDH
THE TEAM
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EPFL PAVILIONS
Moss Fabian Postdoctoral researcher
Mihailescu Ion-Gabriel Postdoctoral researcher
KENDERDINE SARAH
Neuwirth Markus Scientist
Raffestin Pauline Administrative assistant
Quinton Estelle Administrative assistant
Thomet Sylvie Administrative assistant
Professor and EPFL Pavilions director Alliata Giacomo Trainee Bini Giulia Curator and production coordinator Chouard Patrick Audiovisual technician
EXPERIMENTAL MUSEOLOGY LABORATORY
Curty Joël Communication manager
KENDERDINE SARAH
Lardeau Johnston Anne-Gaëlle Manager Mongini Camilla Trainee Nguyen Le Thy Events coordinator Nicoulaz Aurélie Events coordinator Quidort Mélissa Intern Romon Stéphanie Administrative assistant
DIGITAL AND COGNITIVE MUSICOLOGY LABORATORY ROHRMEIER MARTIN Professor and DCML director Cecchetti Gabriele Doctoral assistant Deguernel Ken Postdoctoral researcher Ericson Petter Postdoctoral researcher Finkensiep Christoph Doctoral assistant Harasim Daniel Doctoral assistant
Professor and eM+ director Al-Badri Nora Artist-in-residence Cantelli Lorenzo Software engineer Chouard Patrick Audiovisual technician Donaldson Patrick Media designer Gurnel Hadrien Software engineer Heuer Afshan Postdoctoral researcher Hou Yumeng Doctoral assistant Mannane Samy Software engineer Romon Stéphanie Administrative assistant Shaw Jeffrey Visiting professor Yacob Mary Scientific assistant
LABORATORY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Hentschel Johannes Doctoral assistant
BAUDRY JÉRÔME
Herff Steffen Postdoctoral researcher
Dumas Primbault Simon Postdoctoral researcher
Lieck Robert Postdoctoral researcher
Fenzi Marianna Postdoctoral researcher
McLeod Andrew Postdoctoral researcher
Guffroy Yohann Doctoral assistant
Professor and LHST director
Volynskaya Alina Doctoral assistant
DIGITAL HUMANITIES LABORATORY KAPLAN FRÉDÉRIC Professor and DHLAB director Ares Oliveira Sofia Systems engineer Ballaud François Project manager Barman Raphaël Doctoral assistant Baumer Kevin Project manager Berger Fabrice Designer 3D Descombes Albane Photogrammetry operator Dupertuis Didier Web developer Ehrmann Maud Scientist Foucart-Noriega Alicia Administrative assistant Guhennec Paul Doctoral assistant Hamel Nils System specialist and software engineer Paccard Gaël Interface and graphic designer Pardini Federica Doctoral assistant Romanello Matteo Scientist
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Rapport annuel - Collège des Humanités
Education
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CHAPITRE
CHAPITRE
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
THE SHS TEACHING PROGRAM Introductory program: Global Issues Bachelor's classes Master's classes 2020 SHS Prize
STAS MINOR CHIC program Changing Arctic Program - Northern Russia
INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING PRACTICES FIELD initiative INSSINC program
OTHER INTERDISCIPLINARY INITIATIVES CDH partnership with ENAC on urban issues Montreux Jazz Memories
MASTER’S IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES 2020 students and graduates Internships in 2020
PHD IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES CDH EDUCATION IN NUMBERS
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
We offer a variety of classes and degree programs in the humanities and social sciences at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s level. Our aim is to give tomorrow’s engineers a broader understanding of the world around them and enhance their awareness of societal issues. Our approach is designed to combine interdisciplinary perspectives on critical global issues with hands-on, real-world experience. We believe this is the best way to prepare engineers to address the challenges stemming from advancements in science and technology, and to give them a heightened sense of social responsibility. Through our FIELD initiative and other programs, students get practical experience with human-centered design, social innovation and prototyping, preparing them to respond to complex challenges such as climate change, urbanization and social inequality. Our Master of Science in Digital Humanities program teaches students how to apply data-science methods to the humanities and includes internships at prestigious organizations. Our PhD in Digital Humanities program aims to educate a new generation of engineers who combine domain knowledge with quantitative methods to analyze, model and think critically about real-world problems.
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EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
THE SHS TEACHING PROGRAM The Social Sciences and Humanities (SHS) program is an integral part of all EPFL degree programs. Students must take an SHS class every semester from the first year of their Bachelor’s degree through the first year of their Master’s degree. It offers students around 150 classes to choose from in a wide range of humanities and social-science topics. The classes are given by teachers at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), EPFL and other partner universities such as the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL) and the Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD).
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Image from the first-year global Issues course, Food B track. Instructors: Maximilien Stauber and Carlos Canto Alvarez Photo: All rights reserved
Introductory program: Global Issues
to work in groups to develop a poster presentation on a subject
Our Global Issues program gives engineers the tools to address
of their choice. Each track is taught by two lecturers, one from
complex global challenges and enhances their understanding
the natural sciences or engineering and one from the social
of how societal mechanisms interact with technological
sciences or humanities.
development. All first-year Bachelor’s students must take a Global Issues class in one of six key areas, or “tracks”: Climate, Communication, Energy, Food, Health and Mobility. The classes use a highly interdisciplinary approach and students are asked
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
Best-poster awards ceremony The Global Issues awards ceremony is usually held at the SwissTech Convention Center, with hundreds of students and teachers attending and a keynote speech given by a special guest (the Grand Témoin). But due to the pandemicrelated restrictions, the ceremony in 2020 was held as a smaller gathering on 10 March at ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions DataSquare. CDH Dean Prof. Béla Kapossy announced and congratulated the best eleven winning posters from the 2019 Global Issues program. The winning projects •
Red Yeast Rice: Effective and Without Risk? (Food A track)
•
An Army of Cockroaches Against Food Waste (Food B track)
•
The Release of Sulfate Aerosols into the Atmosphere: A Solution to the Global Temperature Rise? (Climate A track)
•
Un p’tit ver? (Climate B track)
•
Teratogens: Medicines of Risk During Pregnancy (Health A track)
•
Sommes-nous en dent-ger? (Health B track)
•
Scientific Publications: Access Restricted (Communication A track)
•
On Social Media Since Birth (Communication B track)
•
Programmed Obsolescence: What are the Issues? (Energy A track)
•
Ocean Thermal Energy: A Technology with Promising Potential (Energy B track)
•
The Challenges of Autonomous Cars (Mobility track)
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Aloïse Corbaz, Le cloisonné de théâtre (theater compartment, detail), 1951, colored pencil, grease crayon and sewn thread on paper, 1404 x 99 cm, Collection Christine and Jean David Mormod, Lausanne. Photo from the course: Art Brut (outsider art), Bachelor cycle. Instructor: Lucienne Peiry
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Winning poster for the Act for Change LAB Award 2020: Campus: alternatives énergétiques? (Campus: Alternative Energy Sources?) Global Issues course 2020 - Energy A track
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EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Winners of the 2020 Act for Change Lab Award
Bachelor's classes
The Act for Change Lab Award is handed out by EPFL’s
All EPFL Bachelor’s students must take a class from the SHS
Sustainability Unit to encourage students to design and
program in each semester of their studies. These classes
implement sustainability-oriented projects and initiatives.
have no prerequisites and require students to carry out group
Global Issues projects that deal with a sustainability-related
projects. A wide range of projects were completed in 2020,
topic and that could feasibly be tested at EPFL are eligible
reflecting the program’s breadth and diversity. New courses
for the Award. Four Global Issues projects won an Act
were added to the SHS program in 2020 in order to address
for Change Lab Award in 2020:
two areas of growing interest linked to today’s global
•
Vegetation in the City: A solution to Heat Islands?
challenges: ethics linked to technology, and sustainability
(Climate B track)
and climate change.
•
L’urbanisation des data-centers (The Urbanization of Data Centers) (Energy B track)
•
Microalgues : Biofixation optimale du CO2 en milieux urbains ? (Microalgae: Optimal Biofixation of CO2 in Urban Areas?) (Energy B track)
•
Campus : alternatives énergétiques ? (Campus: Alternative Energy Sources?) (Energy A track).
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Master’s classes: New additions in 2020
EDUCATION
•
Digital Urban History: Lausanne Time Machine, in which
We added three new Master’s classes to the SHS program in
students reconstruct the history of Lausanne using
2020, two of which are also open to UNIL students as part of
statistical methods, datasets, software and textual,
a joint initiative. These unique classes are based on student
cartographic and photographic sources.
experiments and provide an example of the novel teaching approaches and interdisciplinary format used in the SHS program. They are:
•
Experimental History of Science, which gives students the background and tools to understand the key role that scientific skills and objects have played in producing
•
Data in Context: Critical Data Studies, which looks at the challenging methods needed to work with complex, heterogeneous and often messy datasets to address socially relevant questions.
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Painting for the film directed in 2006 by Michael Arias based on the manga of Tayō Matsumoto, Tekkon Kinkreet (bitter concrete), 1993-4. Visual from the course: Contemporary Japan, Culture and Thought as Mirrored in Architecture Instructor: Irène Vogel Chevroulet
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knowledge throughout history.
EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
2020 SHS Prize The SHS Prize, introduced in 2012, recognizes high-quality, original Master’s projects carried out as part of the SHS program. Winning projects highlight the important contribution that the humanities and social sciences can make to an engineering education. The SHS teaching committee selects the winning project at the end of each school year, and the award is handed out on the eve of EPFL’s graduation ceremony. The 2020 SHS Prize was given jointly to two groups of three Master’s students each, in recognition of their outstanding work. Unfortunately, the award ceremony, scheduled to be held at the Rolex Learning Center, had to be canceled due to the pandemic.
The 2020 SHS Prize winners were: •
Léandre Tarpin-Pitre, Rachel Lee and Nikolina Tomic Project: Danish Language Requirements’ Role in the Socio-economic Integration of Migrants Class: Governing Global Migration (taught by Madeleine Dungy)
•
Nora Joos, Stanislas Jouven and Balz Marty Project: A Trade-Off between Growth and Sustainability: An Inquiry into the Role of Trade in Chile’s Development Class: Economic Growth and Sustainability (taught by Philippe Thalmann).
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
STAS MINOR We offer a minor in Science, Technology and Area Studies (STAS), which sits at the crossroads of science, technology and the social sciences. The minor is designed to give students the tools and skills they need to communicate across disciplines and regions. It includes lectures as well as specific training to prepare students for fieldwork. Lecturers Marc Laperrouza and Eric Hoesli supervised several projects up until the 2019–2020 school year. For the 2020–2021 school year, the trips planned to China and Russia had to be canceled due to the pandemic and replaced by other projects.
CHIC program In the China Hardware Innovation Camp (CHIC) program, cross-disciplinary groups of students from EPFL, ECAL and UNIL design a product from scratch and finalize it in southern China. While the trip to southern China had to be canceled in 2020, we did everything we could to ensure students still learned as much as possible from the experience. To that end, we held a two-week summer-school session in Lausanne in early September. Activities included developing prototypes and setting up user tests. Professionals were on hand to coach the student groups and help them fine-tune their prototypes. Students then pitched their ideas via Zoom to business accelerators in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. We also arranged a number of field visits to introduce students to Switzerland’s hardware ecosystem.
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Constructive feedback session during the ideation phase in groups composed of students in engineering, design, and economics. Photo : Marius Aeberli
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EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
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Pitching session during the CHIC kick-off Photo : Marius Aeberli
The student projects for this sixth year of the CHIC program were: •
Canary – a system that alerts rail workers when a train is approaching
•
Check-y – a smart headband for athletes to monitor head impacts
•
Odeji – an application and programmable device that can make meetings more efficient
•
Roots – an artistic exhibit that generates visuals when a plant is touched by a human hand. The Universities of Applied Sciences in Geneva, Fribourg and Yverdon also took part in the program through our openCHIC initiative. Two projects from past years have been taken further:
•
Hapstick (CHIC 2018–2019), which won first place in the Start Lausanne competition (CHF 30,000 in prize money) and is now part of UNIL’s UCreate program
•
FlyQ (CHIC 2019–2020), which is now part of the Pulse Incubator in Geneva.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
Changing Arctic Program - Northern Russia
Two expeditions had been planned in 2020 for students’ field
In this three-semester program, Master’s students study the
projects: one on the Professor Molchanov research vessel,
effects of climate change through classroom learning and
and one to visit the remnants of a gulag on the Yamal Peninsula.
real-world experience that complement their main curriculum.
Both expeditions had to be canceled due to the pandemic-
It includes lectures and modules as well as activities
related travel restrictions and were replaced with projects here
to meticulously prepare students for a field project of their
in Switzerland, although students were able to make full use
choice. The projects are carried out in the break between
of the preparatory work they had already performed.
school semesters, and students must subsequently write and submit a report. Nineteen students (seven from EPFL, four from UNIL, two from UNINE, four from UNIGE and two from ETH Zurich) took part in the program in 2020, with the support of the Swiss Polar Institute, which provided five grants.
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EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
The 19 students were divided into the following groups: •
Microplastics research group This group developed computer models of how microplastic particles flow and accumulate in the Barents Sea and collected samples from Lake Geneva and analyzed them in a lab.
•
Water cycles & systems research group This group studied water systems on Bretaye Lake, in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, looking in particular at how various environmental factors interact, the effects of weather conditions and the dynamics of greenhouse gases.
•
Yamal research group This group published a collection of articles about an old gulag, its remnants, the surrounding natural environment, how the environment has changed and
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Members of the "flow and water" group shake bottles for two minutes in order to obtain an equilibrium in the concentrations of CH4 and CO2 in the gas and water. Photo: César Ordóñez Valdebenito
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Representation of camp 93 on site 501-503 in the Yamal Peninsula, which can be found on the website www.yamal.ch. Photo: Changing Arctic Program, all rights reserved
what we can learn from gulag camps; the group also developed a related website. •
Journalism & communications research group This group worked with various stakeholders to help outline a Swiss arctic policy for the Swiss federal government. The students wrote an in-depth article on the issue, investigated the advantages and disadvantages of using testimonials from their research in this professional context, and studied how remote working could affect this type of survey.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A RY TEACHING PRACTICES We actively promote the development and adoption of innovative, interdisciplinary teaching practices by working in association with other EPFL schools and units.
FIELD initiative
The FIELD initiative brings together four key principles
Through our FIELD initiative, we help the next generation of
of an engineering education:
scientists and engineers incorporate design thinking and
•
human- and design-centric approaches into their methods.
interdisciplinary teamwork – working with students from different disciplines, both within EPFL and beyond (e.g., UNIL and ECAL)
Our FIELD team works to develop and implement novel,
•
interdisciplinary educational activities that can be used in open-ended courses and programs (e.g., CHIC and
field •
INSSINC). The team also helps EPFL teachers incorporate design-driven approaches and project-based learning methods into their classes. Through FIELD, EPFL students
immersion – getting out of the classroom and into the decentering – approaching problems using tools and methods from the humanities and design sphere
•
reiteration – learning by doing and by drawing lessons from the experience
get an opportunity to engage in holistic design processes as part of their Bachelor’s or Master’s programs, initiate
In 2020, our FIELD team ran the sixth edition of the China
their own projects and lay the foundations for
Hardware Innovation Camp (CHIC) and the second edition
an entrepreneurial venture.
of the India Switzerland Social Innovation Camp (INSSINC). The team also supported other EPFL initiatives, such as the Discovery Learning Labs (DLLs), Tech4Impact and AMEKE, and helped design the pilot edition of the Climate and Sustainability Action Week (CSAW). The team has developed a software program – now part of the EPFL Learning Companion – that guides students and faculty members interested in using human- and design-centric approaches in their open-ended projects.
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The Learning Companion application aims to improve students' learning process and allows instructors to better target students' difficulties. Photo : Marius Aeberli
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Doha Mahfoudhi (HEC Lausanne) and Amara Slaymaker (Energy Science and Technology, EPFL) testing the application with an instructor and her interpreter, in a school at a migrant camp outside of Bangalore. Photo : Vivian Ambrose, INSSINC 2020
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EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
INSSINC program
The human-centric design process promoted through INSSINC
The India Switzerland Social Innovation Camp (INSSINC) is
is essential for achieving effective social innovation, as it
a two-week social innovation program in which students travel
facilitates new streams of thought for analyzing complex and
to Bangalore, India, to tackle social challenges out in the field.
deeply embedded social challenges. In this unique program,
Students work in interdisciplinary groups that draw on skills
the prototyped solutions are just one outcome; the other,
in engineering, design and the social sciences to address
more important, one is the valuable learning process applied
local problems.
to creating them.
INSSINC is an initiative of CDH along with the SELCO Foundation,
Marius Aeberli and Marc Laperrouza from CDH, along with
swissnex India, Tech4Dev (under EPFL’s Vice Presidency for
Hilda Liswani from Tech4Dev, are now working to ensure that
Innovation) and the Canton of Vaud.
this iterative design process can be applied to other student programs in the future, notably through EPFL’s Digital Resources
For the second edition, ten students from EPFL, EPFL+ECAL,
for Instruction and Learning (DRIL) program.
ECAL, and HEC Lausanne spent two weeks in India in February 2020 to prototype multifaceted solutions for assisting marginalized communities. More specifically, they leveraged their diverse backgrounds and skills to tackle practical, social and technological challenges at two schools located in migrant camps outside of Bangalore.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
OT H E R I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A RY I N I T I AT I V E S CDH partnership with ENAC on urban issues
development concepts, methods and models unique to
CDH senior scientist Florence Graezer Bideau is taking part in
Asian cities. It takes an interdisciplinary look at the theoretical
an ENAC Week program titled The Ephemeral City. This program
frameworks that researchers can use to analyze urban
teaches students about the various issues involved in large
development in Asia and compare it to that in Europe.
public events and their effects on cities. Focusing on the 50th edition of Lausanne’s Festival de la Cité, students examine the effects that temporary structures built for this event have on the city’s resources (both material and economic), infrastructure and relationship with its environment. Graezer Bideau, along with her colleague Beatrice Ferrari, also gives a class on Urbanism in Asia to architecture students that explores the urban
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EDUCATION
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Montreux Jazz Memories Digitalizing a Cultural Heritage This interdisciplinary class is given by Alexandre Camus, Alain Dufaux and Florence Graezer Bideau as part of CDH’s association with the PIC (Programme Innovations Culturelles) initiative at UNIL-EPFL’s dhCenter. The class encourages students to develop a critical-thinking approach and practical skills for using modern tools to digitalize cultural heritage assets and showcase that heritage. Students put that approach and those skills to work as they contribute to the Montreux Jazz Digital Project, which is being run by EPFL’s Cultural Heritage & Innovation Center (CHC) and Fondation Claude Nobs in an effort to safeguard past editions of the Montreux Jazz Festival.
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ENAC Week, The Ephemeral City, invites architecture students to explore the impact of the 50th edition of Lausanne's Festival de la cité, which will take place in summer 2021. Photo : Alexandre Gonzalez
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Montreux Jazz Digital Project, with director Alain Dufaux Photo : Alain Herzog, EPFL
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
MASTER’S IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Our Master of Science in Digital Humanities is a comprehen-
Internships in 2020
sive program covering the foundations and applications of
Students in the Master’s in Digital Humanities program must
computer science and the humanities. It is the only program
complete a six-month internship at a cultural institution,
of its kind in Europe and is intended for students with
company, international organization or public institution of
a background in science and engineering. Students work
their choice. At the end of the six months, they create a short
on cutting-edge projects such as the flagship Venice Time
video describing their experience, which is then published on
Machine and the famous Montreux Jazz Festival Archives.
CDH’s YouTube channel.
Students must complete a Master’s thesis as part of this pro-
Some of the institutions that hosted interns in 2020 were:
gram. The breadth of topics covered by the students’ projects
•
Agence Mediafaune, Aspremont, France
illustrates the many possibilities for applying data science to
•
Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (INHA), Paris
the humanities in a wide range of fields including musicology,
•
MET International AG, Zug
literature, arts, global cultural heritage, historical archives,
•
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF), Paris.
social media and more.
2020 students and graduates 15 new students joined the Master’s in Digital Humanities program in the fall of 2020, bringing the total number of students to 24 (25% women and 75% men). Most of them came from EPFL, with the rest coming from other universities in Switzerland, China, India and the US. The second cohort of Master’s in Digital Humanities students (eight students) graduated in a ceremony on 3 October 2020. The ceremony was kept small due to the pandemic-related restrictions. This brought the total number of graduates to 13.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
PHD IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Our PhD in Digital Humanities program (EDDH) is designed to educate a new generation of scientists and engineers who combine domain knowledge with quantitative methods in order to analyze, model and think critically about real-world problems. The program is intended mainly for computer scientists, data scientists, engineers, mathematicians, biologists and broadly skilled students from the humanities and social sciences who are interested in the spectrum of interdisciplinary research issues related to the digital humanities. Students are trained to provide intellectual contributions
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The graduates of 2020: Valentine Bernasconi, Evgeniy Aleksandrowitsch Chervonenko, Marion Kramer, Arthur Antoine Parmentier, Rémi Petitpierre, Santiago Saint-Supéry, Cédric Viaccoz and Jenny Paola Yela Bello.
and develop leadership skills in the digital humanities, but also to address societal and cultural issues more generally. Research opportunities in the program include empirical research in the areas of art, music, history and literature; data sculpting and experimental museology; social computing; the social, political, cultural and ethical dimensions of digital technology; data science; machine learning; and distributed information systems. Admission to the program is highly competitive. We received 51 applications in 2020 from top-tier international universities, underscoring a rising trend in both the number and quality of applicants.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EDUCATION
C D H E D U C AT I O N IN NUMBERS
148
courses in the SHS program
129
lecturers in the SHS program
STUDENTS SHS Bachelor's Spring 2020 - 1st year introduction
1380
Spring 2020 - 2nd and 3rd years
2046
Autumn 2020 - 2nd and 3rd years
2045
SHS Master's Spring 2020 (class 2019-20)
1222
Autumn 2020 (class 2020-21)
1402
STAS Minor Cycle 2019 - 2020 (fieldwork in 2020) CHIC - China
18
Russia
19
INSSINC - India
10
Master in Digital Humanities
15
Doctoral students Doctoral Program in Digital Humanities (EDDH) Doctoral Program in Architecture and Sciences of the City (EDAR)
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9 7
7
EPFL schools involved
Research
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
TWO INSTITUTES Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) Digital Humanities Institute (DHI)
IAGS RESEARCH INITIATIVES Heritage, Culture and City Makerspaces project Lausanne Time Machine
DHI LABORATORIES Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory Digital Humanities Laboratory Laboratory for Experimental Museology Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology Social Computing Group
PHD THESES Theses completed in 2020 Ongoing theses
OTHER RESEARCH GROUPS Engineering education UNIL-EPFL GameLab History of industrial pollution
CROSS PROGRAM 2020 CROSS topic: Mobility Selected projects CROSS research linked to the COVID-19 pandemic
CDH VISITING PROFESSORS FACULTY DEPARTURES AND APPOINTMENTS GRANTS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS IN 2020 PUBLICATIONS AND LIBRARY SERVICES
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Rapportofannuel College Humanities - Collège - Annual des Humanités Report 2020
RESEARCH CHAPITRE
CDH is home to world-class interdisciplinary research conducted through our two institutes: the Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) and the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI). Researchers at the IAGS examine local realities across diverse geopolitical contexts from the perspectives of urban studies, cultural heritage, historical conservation and more. Researchers at the DHI foster cutting-edge discoveries in digital humanities by applying methods from data science, computer science and engineering to the study of culture, society and history. Our other research groups at CDH stepped up their work significantly in 2020. Their interdisciplinary initiatives covered topics such as engineering education, game studies and the history of industrial pollution. We also host a growing number of PhD students who explore a broad array of topics and methodological approaches, reflecting the diversity of research possibilities in our pioneering disciplinary areas. Through our role as coordinator of the Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS) program, we bring together researchers from EPFL and UNIL to study pressing issues related to society and technology.
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RESEARCH
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
TWO INSTITUTES
Albane Descombes and Didier Dupertuis install the omnidirectional camera on the ScanVan. Photo: DHLAB / EPFL
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Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS)
Digital Humanities Institute (DHI)
The Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) conducts
The Digital Humanities Institute (DHI) equips students with
research on a variety of subjects including urban anthropology,
international leadership skills in research and education in
cultural heritage, historical archives, urban culture and innovation
the digital humanities. It applies methods from data science,
and climate change. IAGS has built up a cross-disciplinary
computer science and engineering to fields in the humanities
network of researchers both within EPFL and beyond to support
and social sciences – from music to cultural heritage.
our scientific discoveries and educational programs, which include semester projects and a minor in Science, Technology
Our digital humanities program is an excellent example
and Area Studies (STAS).
of EPFL’s interdisciplinary approach, which goes beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries while strengthening each
In terms of education, the institute’s goal is to prepare students
field’s contribution to engineering and the social sciences.
to work effectively in emerging countries by giving them the tools they need to better understand societies and cultures outside
DHI was established in 2015 and already houses some of
the Western world.
Europe’s most prestigious laboratories in this exciting, rapidly growing field.
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Renovation work in the historic neighborhood of Qianmen, Beijing Photo : Florence Graezer Bideau
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
IAGS RESEARCH I N I T I AT I V E S Heritage, Culture and City
Lausanne Time Machine
Led by senior scientist Florence Graezer Bideau, this group
This initiative, coordinated by Isabella Di Lenardo, aims to give
conducts research at the crossroads of social science,
researchers easier access to the vast collection of archives
architecture and urban studies, investigating the place and
currently stored at our region’s main heritage institutions.
role of social actors in the process of heritage-formation from
It is being carried out jointly by CDH and UNIL-EPFL’s
the perspective of the cultural and urban policies that underpin
dhCenter, a consortium of researchers from Time Machine
it. One of the group’s new projects, Uses of Cultural Heritage
Europe, and the City of Lausanne.
at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games of 2022, looks at new consumption practices in connection with the cultural,
In 2020, researchers affiliated with the Lausanne Time
sporting and public-health policies promoted by the Chinese
Machine published a collection of articles on digital and
government for the Olympic Games. The project is being
computational research methods in urban history. Their
run by Graezer Bideau, along with Helena Roux and Mengke
articles spanned a variety of topics in art, digital humanities
Zhang from CDH and Thierry Theurillat from HEG-Arc Neuchâtel.
and urban planning. Di Lenardo and Marie-Hélène Coté, from UNIL, obtained funding through our CROSS program for a new
In 2020, the group took part in the new PIC (Programme
project to be conducted in 2021, called Names of Lausanne:
d’Innovations Culturelles) initiative by the UNIL-EPFL
The Evolution of Family Names in Administrative Records.
Center for Digital Humanities (dhCenter), and helped set up
They plan to develop a database of Lausanne’s population
the UNIL-EPFL East Asian Research Group, which is working
between 1803 and 1900 by automatically extracting data from
on a 2020–2021 SNSF project.
archived documents (such as civil records, census data and directories) that are stored at local heritage institutions.
Makerspaces project - Culminating in a Chinese book launch Graezer Bideau, along with fellow CDH researchers Marc Laperrouza, Monique Bolli and Clément Renaud, as well as external contributors, published a book in 2020 titled Realtime: Making Digital China. This compendium of essays, articles, analyses and artwork explores the rapid transformation of innovation practices and spaces in urban China. The book marks the culmination of a four-year research project supported by the SNSF, titled Makerspaces: Politics and Communities of Innovation in Contemporary China. The book’s authors traveled to manufacturing epicenter Shenzhen, China, on 11–12 January to launch their book at the Eyes of the City exhibition. Curated by MIT Prof. Carlo Ratti, this exhibition was part of the 2019 edition of the Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture.
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RESEARCH
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
THE DHI L A B O R AT O R I E S ←
In August 2020, the DCML published a study identifying the key stylistic traits of roughly 300 pieces of music from Brazilian choro. Photo: a 2019 musical tribute to renowned choro composer Jacob do Bandolim, on the 50th anniversary of his death in São Paulo, Brazil. Credit: Governo do Estado de São Paulo / CC BY
Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory
In August, they published a study in the Journal of New Music
(DCML)
Research that identified key stylistic traits from some 300
Led by Prof. Martin Rohrmeier
pieces of Brazilian choro music, providing an unprecedented
The DCML explores music from cognitive, computational,
empirical analysis of the harmony and form of the genre. To
musicological and psychological perspectives. It combines
perform the analyses, DCML postdoc Fabian Moss worked
modern algorithmic methods, corpus research, music-theo-
with Willian Fernandes Souza from the Federal University of
retical expertise and experimental approaches to study four
Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to apply data-science and statistical
main research topics: musical structure-building, musicologi-
methods to the characterization of choro’s musical style
cal corpus research, the cognitive foundations of music and
for the very first time.
computational modeling. The DCML also draws on a global network of experts in musicology, artificial intelligence and
In September, DCML postdoc Steffen Herff received a grant
neuroscience to deepen researchers’ understanding of
of over CHF 95,000 from the SNSF’s Spark program for
musical structures by employing cutting-edge technology.
a one-year project on the relationship between music and imagination. His unique project, titled Wanderful Music:
In 2020, DCML researchers completed a multi-year study
A Systematic Investigation into Music-Induced Mind
on the basic compositional building blocks that structurally
Wandering, will test and empirically characterize how
underpin different music styles from Bach to Beethoven.
music stimulates imagination, or mind wandering.
They also obtained funding for new projects that examine music's relation to creativity, human mobility and historical theory from a range of methodological approaches.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
Digital Humanities Laboratory (DHLAB)
information contained in historical documents. The researchers
Led by Prof. Frédéric Kaplan
have created 3D replicas of over 1,000 buildings and are now
The DHLAB studies new computational approaches for
looking at how their approach can be applied to the entire
re-examining the past and anticipating the future. Its innovative
city. The lab hired a new PhD student to study this topic.
educational programs and didactic technology are training a new generation of digital humanists.
ScanVan, another SNSF project, entails generating digital images of Sion using a 360° camera. The lab hired a web
The lab received an extension from the SNSF to complete
developer to create a digital interface that enables users
its Sinergia project titled Impresso - Media Monitoring of the
to take an interactive tour of Sion’s “digital twin.” Florent
Past, which it is working on in conjunction with the University
Thouvenin from the University of Zurich helped design
of Zurich and the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary
the website to ensure that it complies with Swiss
and Digital History. The Impresso database already contains
personal-data protection laws. The researchers have
75 historical journal titles – or some five million pages
filed a patent for their novel method for digitalizing cities.
of content – that users can browse through. Under a project that had obtained funding through the In October, the DHLAB, in association with the Digital Epide-
CROSS program, DHLAB researchers, working in association
miology Lab, which is in EFPL’s School of Life Sciences and
with Vincent Kaufmann (from EPFL’s LASUR laboratory) and
headed by Prof. Marcel Salathé, published a study that used
Patrick Rerat (from UNIL), conducted a pilot study on visualizing
digitized historical records to provide novel insights into
future mobility systems in Switzerland. In 2021, DHLAB
the spread of the bubonic plague in Venice. This work
will take that research further through a Sinergia project
underscores the importance of digital data collection as
conducted jointly with LASUR to analyze and visualize cities
a tool for studying the global patterns and local dynamics
and their transformations.
of disease spread. Another SNSF project the lab is working on is Parcels of Venice, which involves building a complete model of Venice and its residents in the year 1808 based on cadastral
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The ScanVan supports an innovative scanning system that produces spherical images in regular increments. This project, financed by the SNSF, brings together researchers from the EPFL Digital Humanities Laboratory, the HES-SO Valais/Wallis Institute of Systems Engineering, and the University of Zurich’s Center for Information Technology, Society, and Law. Photo: DHLAB / EPFL
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
←
Created by eM+, in collaboration with 24 Swiss museums, the muse application offers visitors an engaging way to communicate their experiences. Photo : Sarah Kenderdine
Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+)
In August, as part of EPFL’s A Calling for Research summer
Led by Prof. Sarah Kenderdine
series of articles, Kenderdine shared her experience tracing,
eM+ is an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the crossroads
photographing and digitally reconstructing the seldom-told
of immersive visualization technology, visual analytics,
story of Buddhism’s maritime spread across Asia. Her work
aesthetics and cultural (big) data. It promotes post-cinematic
was carried out under the Atlas of Maritime Buddhism project,
multisensory engagement using experimental platforms
which aims to create a vast, permanent exhibition to be
and is home to an array of custom-built cluster-based 3D
unveiled in Taiwan in May 2021 (following a year-long delay
systems. eM+ also works on tangible and intangible heritage
due to the COVID-19 pandemic). A traveling exhibition of
and archival materials from Asia, Australasia and Europe.
the Atlas project will premiere in Hong Kong in late July 2021.
Researchers employ state-of-the-art computer science and human-computer interaction methods to transform
In September, eM+ announced that it had received funding from
cultural data into advanced, ultra-high-resolution visualiza-
Engagement Migros to develop muse, a pioneering audience-
tions and new museological experiences.
evaluation app, in association with 24 Swiss museums. The app will give museum visitors an engaging way to comment on their
In 2020, Kenderdine had the honor of being included in
experience, while providing museums with valuable feedback
Bilanz’s list of digital shapers – the “100 most important
for developing other exhibitions and attractions.
people driving digitization in Switzerland” – in the Creatives category. She was also a finalist in the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year competition for her pioneering work in experimental museology. She was ranked by Blooloop as one of the top ten influences for museums globally, placing her among some of the world’s most visionary museum directors and practitioners.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
→
The ALPES team mid-way between Sixt and the summit of Mont Buet (3,098m). Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault, Ion-Gabriel Mihailescu, Marianna Fenzi, and a Genevan colleague. Photo : Jérôme Baudry
Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology (LHST) Led by Prof. Jérôme Baudry The LHST aims to provide greater insight into the transformations of science and technology in their historical, cultural and social contexts. In addition to studying the past using approaches from the digital humanities, LHST researchers explore contemporary developments in science and technology in order to understand how they shape and are shaped by today’s world. In 2020, the LHST hosted the first History of Science in Switzerland/Schweiz/Svizzera (HSSuisse) conference – a soonto-be annual gathering of Swiss-based researchers studying the history of science and technology. The event was held at the DataSquare in the EPFL Pavilions building on 6 March. The LHST also held a virtual workshop called Digital Traces, Navigational Paths, and Intellectual Mobility on 26–27 November. One LHST project, titled Digital Trail Blazing: Understanding and Remaking Intellectual Mobility on Online Research Platforms, was selected to receive funding under our 2020 CROSS program. The lead researchers on this project are
40
Jérôme Baudry and Simon Dumas Primbault from the LHST and Jean-François Bert from UNIL. New LHST hire Alina Volynskaya received funding through the SNSF’s doc.ch program for her project titled Querying the Digital Archive of Science: Distant Reading, Semantic Modeling, and Representation of Knowledge. In addition to Volynskaya, the LHST also hired Sylvie Thomet in 2020 as an administrative assistant. The LHST introduced a new project in 2020, titled Historians in the Wild: A Cross-Media Reconstruction of Science in the Mountains, in association with Geneva’s History of Science Museum. This project aims to reconstruct the research expeditions that Geneva scientists carried out in the Alps in the 1770s. In August, the LHST unveiled a new digitized catalog of the UNIL-EPFL Collection of Scientific Instruments, making more than 1,000 instruments available online to students, researchers and the general public.
RESEARCH
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Social Computing Group (SCG)
In early April 2020, as EPFL – along with Switzerland and the
Led by Prof. Daniel Gatica-Perez
rest of the world – began grappling with the full effects of the
The SCG, part of LIDIAP – the EPFL laboratory associated
COVID-19 pandemic, Daniel Gatica-Perez and his colleagues
with the Idiap Research Institute – studies how people and
Vincent Kaufmann and Claudia Binder were selected to
technology interface in everyday life. In doing so, it combines
receive EPFL funding for their Swiss Corona Citizen Science
theories and methods from ubiquitous computing, social
Research project. This project entails conducting a survey
media, machine learning and the social sciences to analyze
of Swiss citizens to examine how they are coping with the new
human and social behavior and design systems that support
living and working conditions under the pandemic. The results
individuals and communities. The group’s current research
will be used to help policymakers understand how such crises
looks at the use of mobile crowdsensing and social media
can be better managed in the future.
analytics for cities, healthcare systems and ubiquitous interaction analysis. The group is affiliated with EPFL’s
In November, Gatica-Perez and his research partner Trinh-
School of Engineering and CDH.
Minh-Tri Do were honored with a 10-Year Impact Award at the International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia
Several of the group’s scientists reached important milestones
for their paper titled "By Their Apps you Shall Understand
in 2020. PhD student Jessica Pidoux was named to the Forum
Them: Mining Large-Scale Patterns of Mobile Phone Usage."
des 100 list of the most influential figures in French-speaking Switzerland, established by Swiss daily Le Temps. Guest student Thanh-Trung Phan obtained his PhD degree in electrical engineering from EPFL. And the group bid farewell to Dr. Skanda Muralidhar, who left EPFL to join an international video-game developer.
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iStock image, credit: Jasper Chamber
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
PHD THESES Theses completed in 2020
Monique Bolli (IAGS)
Leonardo Laurence Impett (DHI)
Following her online defense on 27 March, Bolli became
Following his online defense on 8 May, Impett became the
the first student to earn a PhD from IAGS. Her thesis, Liminality,
second student to earn a PhD from EDDH, which is the DHI’s
Ephemerality, and Marginality with Impact Makerspaces in the
PhD program in digital humanities. His thesis, Painting by
Chinese Urban Fabric: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Addis
Numbers: Computational Methods for Art History, attempts
Ababa, deals with the narratives and imaginaries about maker
to prototype a new methodology for computational art history
cultures and makerspaces that have flourished in recent years
in the tradition of distant reading (from literary criticism) and
in the Chinese urban fabric. What is the government’s interest in
based on operationalization (the transcription of a concept
bringing new narratives supporting innovation into these maker
or theory from cultural history into an algorithm). Impett applies
movements? What is the impact on people’s lives and what
this methodology to three case studies by operationalizing
sort of outreach do projects born in these spaces have? How
concepts from two 20th century art historians – Aby Warburg
can innovative research methods be developed to capture
and Michael Baxandall – and from the 16th century Italian painter
the dynamics of such a culture?
and art theorist Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Lucia Bordone (IAGS)
Daniel Harasim (DCML)
Following her combined online/in-person defense on
Following his online defense on 11 December, Harasim earned
9 October, Bordone earned a PhD in architecture and sciences
a PhD in digital musicology from the DCML. His thesis, The
of the city from IAGS. By drawing upon sociology and urban
Learnability of the Grammar of Jazz: Bayesian Inference of
anthropology, her research explores how the links between
Hierarchical Structures in Harmony, examines computational
collective memory and spaces in contemporary cities change,
models of harmonic knowledge. Music is very rich in all kinds
with a field study of Rome, Italy, as an example. She reveals
of structure in various dimensions such as melody, timbre,
working-class memories in their material, narrative and
harmony and rhythm. Harasim’s research found that general
experienced dimensions using three different disciplinary
prior knowledge enables an ideal learner to acquire abstract
perspectives: historic and historiographical controversies,
musical principles by statistical learning. Thus, it is plausible
everyday life (as observed through ethnographic fieldwork),
that many aspects of musical grammar have been learned
and urban public policy.
by jazz musicians and listeners, instead of being innate predispositions or explicitly taught concepts.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
Ongoing theses
Paul Guhennec (DHLAB)
Raphaël Barman (DHLAB)
Guhennec’s research relates to the procedural reconstruction of
Historical Cadaster as a Computational Object. Barman’s
the architecture of past cities using historical sources. His work
research aims to develop and formalize the process of
focuses primarily on 19th century Venice, for which a great deal
extracting data from historical cadasters so that the data can
of information exists (in the form of cadasters, visual depictions
be used to create an evolutionary model of the populations
and textual descriptions) and can be extracted algorithmically.
represented in these documents.
Johannes Hentschel (DCML) Gabriele Cecchetti (DCML)
Hentschel, a musician, music theorist and educator, is conducting
Cecchetti's research explores the interface between formal
thesis research in musicology. His work involves evaluating
models of musical structure and the fundamental cognitive
a large corpus of digital music scores from three centuries
processes involved in the experience of music. By linking music
and empirically examining the evolution of musical language
theory, computational modeling and empirical investigation,
throughout music history.
this project will further our understanding of how the way music is structured relates to the way humans experience it.
Federica Pardini (DHLAB) The Cadastral City. A European Urban History through the
Christoph Finkensiep (DCML)
Geometry of the 19th Century. Pardini’s research investigates
Modelling Polyphonic Structure in Music. When listening to music,
the relationships among measured cartography, information
humans are able to identify structural entities such as chords
systems and urban revolution, demonstrating that 19th century
and voices. However, very little is known about how these entities
geometrical cadasters acted as pivotal instruments for further
are linked to the musical surface or, for example, what makes
urban decisions. Her work considers cadasters not just as
us say that two musical fragments form the same harmony. This
historical documents but also as mechanisms for spurring city
thesis explores the principles by which sequences of notes form
transformations, combining typo-morphological and social
“voices,” how this relates to harmony, and how it contributes
issues in ways that prefigured the discipline of town planning.
to a listener’s perception of a piece.
Jessica Pidoux (DHI) Yohann Guffroy (LHST)
Online Dating Quantification Practices: A Human-Machine
Representing the Invention: Study of the Evolution of Technical
Learning Process. Through mixed methods, Pidoux’s research
Object Design in England (1750-1850). Guffroy’s research aims
addresses three agents in online dating: interfaces, users and
to explore the role that technical object drawing played in
developers. She argues that these agents act together to learn
the invention process in England and how it evolved between
how to establish affective-algorithmic communication. Dating
the 18th and 19th centuries. This entails studying the drawing
apps shape and measure personal preferences via conventions
process from the perspective of the physical production
and at the same time establish a human-machine trial-error
of a diagram and as a possible language technique.
dynamic for reviewing the affordances that matter to each agent. Pidoux’s findings map the dating app market and shed light on how coding and app usages may or may not facilitate finding a date.
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RESEARCH
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Yumeng Hou (eM+)
Mengke Zhang (IAGS)
EncodingActs. Hou’s thesis studies the potential for standardizing
New Leisure and Outdoor Activities in Chinese Urban Growth:
the consumption of tangible and intangible cultural heritage
Zhangjiakou and Chongli Development for the Beijing Olympic
by exploring a use case for the Hong Kong Martial Arts Living
Games of 2022. Zhang’s research investigates how the hosting
Archive. The goal is to develop an ontology-based knowledge
of the Beijing Winter Olympics and its use of heritage will affect
representation framework combining aspects of embodied
urban economic and social transformation, with a particular
experience, poses, motions, physical objects and historical
focus on sustainability. Her work looks at the mountain areas
documents with the meaning of tradition.
of Yanqing in the suburbs of Beijing and Zhangjiakou-Chongli, where new ski and leisure resorts are being developed
Héléna Roux (IAGS)
to promote a consumption-based society.
Shougang: Industrial Heritage and Creative Parks in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Game Era. Roux’s research looks at the renovation of Shougang, an abandoned steel plant that has been converted into a site for the Olympic Games, complete with recreational areas, sporting facilities and shops. Shougang’s redevelopment serves as an example of the process China is using to revitalize old industrial sites – a process that is contributing to the emergence of new urban practices and lifestyles.
Alina Volynskaya (LHST) Querying the Digital Archive of Science: Distant Reading, Semantic Modelling and Representation of Knowledge. Volynskaya’s research examines how digital science archives can be used as an agency of memory and knowledge production. Her work focuses on institutional repositories, looking at both their infrastructure (in particular, linked-data technology) and methods (distant reading).
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
OTHER RESEARCH GROUPS Engineering education
video games in pedagogical contexts. UNIL-EPFL GameLab
Engineering education research developed by Roland Tormey
researchers, including Selim Krichane and Yannick Rochat
aims to deliver meaningful change in how professors teach
from CDH, give classes on video games as part of
and students learn, sitting at the interface of technical disciplines
the SHS program and through UNIL-EPFL’s continuing
and the humanities and social sciences. Tormey works
education program.
in association with EPFL’s Teaching Support Center (CAPE), Center for Digital Education (CEDE), CHILI lab, MAKE initiative,
UNIL-EPFL GameLab held a series of talks in 2020, called
and Center for Learning Sciences (LEARN).
Games on Campus, aimed at bringing together all the various researchers working on (or with) video games at UNIL
In 2020, Tormey was elected to the Board of Directors of the
and EPFL.
European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). He is also involved in a new swissuniversities-funded project to examine
History of industrial pollution
how students can develop the necessary skills and attitudes
In the fall of 2020, historian Alexandre Elsig joined CDH from
for working with data responsibly.
the University of Lausanne’s Interdisciplinary Mountain Research Center (CIRM) to spearhead a project funded by the SNSF’s
New research partnerships were established in 2020, such
prestigious Ambizione program. The project, titled The Dose
as with Umeå University in Sweden to work on the Emotions
and the Poison. Measure, Govern, and Face Industrial Toxicity
in Engineering Education project. Under this project, scientists
in the 20th century, will use historical archives to study the
will carry out a systematic review of the literature on emotions
measurement, control and criticism of industrial pollution in
in engineering education. Another partnership relates
the 20th century. Specifically, Elsig will investigate the regulation
to UniAnalytics, an SNSF-funded project to develop analytical
of three pollutants that shaped Switzerland’s secondary sector:
programs for the learning process, enabling stakeholders
mercury, a heavy metal; fluorine, a chemical element; and
to adopt more effective educational methods.
polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), a persistent pollutant of organic matter. His research will examine Switzerland’s chlorine,
UNIL-EPFL GameLab
petrochemical, aluminum and electrotechnical industries, as
Originally launched as UNIL GameLab in 2016, this initiative
well as efforts to standardize and control these substances on
became the UNIL-EPFL GameLab in 2020 – a change that
a global scale. Elsig will also look at the impacts that industrial
highlights the close ties being forged between video-game
pollutants have on workers and communities, as their effects
researchers at EPFL (CDH) and UNIL (Faculty of Arts).
may persist long after the toxic compounds are banned.
Research at UNIL-EPFL GameLab studies the relationships among film and game studies, the history of video games in Switzerland, video-game archiving (in collaboration with Musée Bolo), the application of digital humanities methods to the study of video games, and the long tradition of using
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RESEARCH
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
CROSS PROGRAM Our Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS) program facilitates interdisciplinary projects that address pressing societal and technological issues and that are carried out jointly by researchers at EPFL and UNIL. Through an annual call for projects, CROSS provides competitive grants to support the preparatory phase of new research endeavors with a view to obtaining major funding.
2020 CROSS topic: Mobility
all of them examine the impacts and implications of mobility,
The 2020 CROSS Program focused on the topic of Mobility.
whether from a social, cultural, data management
20 applications were received and six were selected, resulting
or technological perspective.
in a total of CHF 356,931 being awarded as grants. The six winning projects were chosen and announced in April;
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Cross project 2020: From Route Cantonale to Passage Paysage: Threading Zero Impact Mobilities in Swiss Metropolitan Areas through Landscape Architecture. D. Dietz and L. Garc.a de Jalon, ALICE IA ENAC (EPFL); P. Rerat, IGD FGSE (UNIL)
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
SELECTED PROJECTS •
Swiss Architects in Saint Petersburg: Technology
•
From Route Cantonale to Passage Paysage:
Transfer and Culture Shift
Threading Zero Impact Mobilities in Swiss
N. Braghieri and F. Cattapan from IA LAPIS ENAC
Metropolitan Areas through Landscape
(EPFL); E. Simonato and N. Bichurina from SLAS FL
Infrastructure
(UNIL)
D. Dietz and L. García de Jalon from ALICE IA ENAC (EPFL); P. Rerat from IGD FGSE (UNIL)
•
Swiss in Motion: Analyzing and Visualizing Daily Rhythms
•
Framing Analysis of Online Discourse
F. Kaplan and N. Hamel from DHLAB DHI CDH (EPFL);
of Returning Foreign Fighters and their Families
P. Rerat and Y. Dubois from IGD FGSE (UNIL); G. Drevon
K. Aberer and T. Elmas from LSIR IC (EPFL);
and V. Kaufmann from ENAC IA LASUR (EPFL)
D. Anke Tresch from GREC ISS (UNIL); M. Reveilhac from LINES ISS (UNIL)
•
Digital Trail Blazing: Understanding and Remaking Intellectual Mobility on Online Research Platforms
•
Models of Musician Mobility and Migrating
J. Baudry and S. Dumas Primbault from LHST DHI CDH
Musical Patterns
(EPFL); J-F. Bert from IHAR FTSR (UNIL)
M. Neuwirth and J. Hentschel from DCML DHI CDH (EPFL); M. Piotrowski and D. Picca from SLI FL (UNIL)
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Cross project 2020: Swiss in Motion: Analyzing and Visualizing Daily Rhythms. F. Kaplan and N. Hamel, DHLAB DHI CDH (EPFL); P. Rerat and Y. Dubois, IGD FGSE (UNIL); G. Drevon and V. Kaufmann, ENAC IA LASUR (EPFL)
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
CROSS research linked to the COVID-19 pandemic Robert West and Andreas Spitz from EPFL’s School of Computer and Communication Sciences, along with Ahmad Abu-Akel from UNIL’s Institute of Psychology, carried out a social-sciences survey in April 2020 in order to better understand popular support for social-distancing measures. The survey built on their 2019 CROSS research on resistance. Their findings resulted in various publications which concluded that scientific experts and governments should not underestimate their power to inform and persuade in times of crisis, and which underscored the importance of selecting the most effective spokespeople for delivering messages about pandemic prevention.
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iStock image, credit : microgen
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RESEARCH
CDH VISITING PROFESSORS Through our visiting professor program, we forge ties with international scholars working in digital humanities research and education and in other interdisciplinary fields that combine engineering and the social sciences. Through the program, CDH labs and research institutes invite visiting professors and guest lecturers to EPFL, helping to expand and enhance our various activities, establish new partnerships and supplement the other hosting initiatives carried out by CDH faculty.
First visiting professor In April 2020, eM+ announced that renowned new-media artist Jeffrey Shaw had been granted a CDH visiting professorship, which has been extended into 2021. Shaw’s primary research topic is presence, or telepresence: the representation of the self in virtual environments. During his visiting professorship, Shaw received the prestigious 2020 Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art from ACM SIGGRAPH, the International Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.
50
↑
Jeffrey Shaw created the very first work of augmented reality in 1981. It was reconstructed for his recent retrospective exhibition WYIWYG at the Osage Gallery in Hong Kong and henceforth belongs to the permanent collection of the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. Photo: all rights reserved
RESEARCH
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
FAC U LT Y D E PA R T U R E S AND APPOINTMENTS
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Prof. Eric Hoesli Photo : Alain Herzog, EPFL
Frédéric Kaplan
Eric Hoesli
In October 2020, CDH Prof. Frédéric Kaplan, head of the
Prof. Eric Hoesli retired at the end of September 2020,
Laboratory for Digital Humanities (DHLab), was named director
stepping down from his role as a teacher and head of the
of the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI). Kaplan replaced
STAS-Russia minor program introduced in 2016. We would
outgoing director Prof. Sabine Süsstrunk, who held the position
like to thank him for his creativity in helping to develop
since the DHI was established in 2015.
this program, his contribution to its success, his expertise, his unfailing support for his students and his commitment
Florence Graezer Bideau
to satisfying their thirst for real-world experience in the Arctic.
In 2020, IAGS senior scientist Florence Graezer Bideau also became a senior scientist affiliated with the architecture section
Sabine Süsstrunk
of EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental
On 30 September 2020, Prof. Sabine Süsstrunk resigned
Engineering (ENAC).
from the post of director of the DHI to take on her new role as president of the Swiss Science Council, a position to which she was elected by the Swiss Federal Council.
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RESEARCH
GRANTS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS IN 2020 DHI Project Title
Principal Investigator(s)
Funding
Wanderful Music a Systematic Investigation into Music-Induced Mind Wandering
Steffen A. Herff
SNSF
Digitizing the Dualism Debate: A Case Study In The Computational Analysis of Historical Music Theory Sources
Fabien Moss
CROSS
Models of Musician Mobility and Migrating Musical Patterns
Markus Neuwirth
CROSS
From Bach to the Beatles: Exploring Compositional Building Blocks and Style Change with Hermeneutic and Computational Methods
Markus Neuwirth
VolkswagenStiftung
PMSB - Principles of Muscial Structure Building: Theory, Computation and Cognition
Martin Rohrmeier
European Research Council (ERC)
Distant Listening - The Development of Harmony over Three Centuries (1700-2000)
Martin Rohrmeier
SNSF
Time Machine
Frédéric Kaplan
H2020 – CSA
Impresso Media Monitoring of the Past
Frédéric Kaplan, Maud Ehrmann
SNSF
ScanVan: A Distributed 3D Digitization Platform for Cities
Frédéric Kaplan
SNSF
Parcels of Venice
Frédéric Kaplan, Isabella di Lenardo
SNSF
Collaboration Swiss Cadastre
Frédéric Kaplan
Research contract with Swiss Cadastre
Swiss in Motion: Analyzing and Visualizing Daily Rhythms
Frédéric Kaplan, Patrick Rérat
CROSS
Knotted Curves: A History of Graphical Features, Patterns and Analogues
Ion Mihailescu
LHST
Paper Minds: A Material History of Scholarly Work through the Working Papers of Viviani and Leibniz, ca. 1650-1700
Simon Dumas Primbault
CROSS
Figuring (Out) Technology: A History of Technical Drawing in England, ca. 1750-1850
Yohann Guffroy
LHST
Quill-and-Paper Algorithmic: A Material Archaeology of Computational Thinking from Leibniz Onwards
Simon Dumas Primbault
LHST
Digital Trail Blazing: Understanding and Remaking Intellectual Mobility on Online Research Platforms
Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault, Jean-François Bert
CROSS
Querying the Digital Archive of Science: Distant Reading, Semantic Modeling and Representation of Knowledge
Alina Volynskaya
SNSF
SAVOIRS
Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault
EHESS, ENSSIB, BNU Strasbourg, UNIL, LHST
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Heroes of Science: The Making of Scientific Glory
Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault
LHST
Interconnected Cropscapes: Antagonism and Complementarity in Conservation and Breeding
Marianna Fenzi
Future Food Initiative
Inventing Intellectual Property
Jérôme Baudry
LHST
Rethinking Science and Public Participation
Bruno J. Strasser
SNSF, University of Geneva
Cultural Sensorium: An Indigenous Ethnography of the Senses
Sarah Kenderdine, Jennifer Biddle
Australian Research Council
Muse: The Voice of the Visitor
Sarah Kenderdine
Engagement Migros
Atlas of Maritime Buddhism: Transforming Visualisation in Museums: Deep Mapping for Narrative Coherence
Sarah Kenerdine, Lewis Lancaster, Jeffrey Shaw
Australian Research Council
Digital Lyric: Beyond the Book
Antonio Rodrigues, Sarah Kenderdine
SNSF
Immersive Environment for Cosmological Big Data
Jean-Paul Kneib, Sarah Kenderdine
Interdiciplinary Seed Fund
Winter at Tantora Festival in Al Ula
Sarah Kenderdine
RCU
Squatty Project for the JOJ 2020
Sarah Kenderdine, Florian le Formal, Laurent D’Andrès, David Bourgit
EPFL
AI4Media: A European Excellence Centre for Media, Society and Democracy
Daniel Gatica-Perez
H2020
ICARUS: Innovative Approach for Urban Security
Daniel Gatica-Perez
H2020
WeNet: The Internet of Us
Daniel Gatica-Perez
H2020
Characterizing Youth Nightlife Spaces, Activities and Drinks
Daniel Gatica-Perez, Emmanuel Kuntsche
SNSF
HealthVlogging: Social Media Culture and Health-related Practices by YouTubers
Maria del Rio Carral, Daniel Gatica-Perez
SNSF
Automatic Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior and Provision of Feedback in Video Selection Interviews
Adrian Bangerter Daniel Gatica-Perez, Marianne Schmid
SNSF
Trust over Time
Nicolas Henchoz, Daniel Gatica-Perez
Initiative for Media Innovation (IMI)
The Metrics of Online Dating: A Sociology of Algorithmic Matching
Jessica Pidoux
SNSF
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
RESEARCH
IAGS Project Title
Principal Investigator(s)
Funding
Uses of Cultural Heritage at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games of 2022
Florence Graezer Bideau, Thierry Theurillat
SNSF
Carrying Time. City and Memory in a UNESCO Site
Florence Graezer Bideau, Filippo de Pieri
SNSF
Makerspaces: Politics and Communities of Innovation in Contemporary China
Florence Graezer Bideau
SNSF
Hybrid Cities: Informal Resistances to the Violence of Urbanization in China, India and Venezuela
Yves Pedrazzini, Florence Graezer Bideau
SNSF
Transition Towards Urban Sustainability through Socially Integrative Cities in the EU and in China
Bernhard Mueller, Florence Graezer Bideau
H2020
Metare app: Appropriating Digital Technologies for Tikuna Language Revitalisation in the Colombian Amazon
Johanna Gonçalves Martin
CODEV - EPFL
Open-ended Project Design Companion
Marius Aeberli, Marc Laperrouza
EPFL - DRIL
China Hardware Innovation Camp (CHIC)
Marc Laperrouza, Marius Aeberli
EPFL - MAKE
Lausanne Time Machine
Isabella di Lenardo, Béla Kapossy
UNIL - EPFL
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
OTHER Project Title
Principal Investigator(s)
Funding
Video Game Study
Loïse Bilat, David Javet, Selim Krichane, Isaac Pante, Yannick Rochat
EPFL (CDH), UNIL (Lettres)
Uni Analytics: What, How, and Why Do Different Educational Stakeholders Use Learning Analytics in Higher Education?
Pierre Dillenbourg, Roland Tormey, Francisco Pinto, Patrick Jermann
SNSF
Supporting Responsible Computational Problem Solving across Domains
Patrick Jermann, Roland Tormey, Jessica Dehler Zufferey, Denis Gillet, Gerd Kortemeyer, Adrian Holzer
swissuniversities under P8
Swiss Corona Citizen Science
Vincent Kaufmann, Daniel Gatica-Perez, Claudia Binder, Marie Santiago Delafosse
EPFL
LOIS: Leveraging On-device Smartphone Inference to Address Resistance to Participate in Social Surveys.
Caroline Roberts, Daniel Gatica-Perez, Jessica Herzing
CROSS
The Dose and the Poison: Measure, Govern and Face Industrial Toxicity in the 20th Century
Alexandre Elsig
SNSF Ambizione
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RESEARCH
P U B L I C AT I O N S AND LIBRARY SERVICES EPFL’s liaison librarian for CDH, Jacqueline Despond, and
contracts, publication models, data and code publication
her staff provided ongoing support to lecturers, students
(including licenses), reuse of material, ORCID profiles,
and researchers in 2020 on issues related to copyrights and
data management plans and more.
1,596
Total publications in Infoscience by end 2020
146
1,174
IAGS
SHS (incl. students projects)
276 DHI
42
New publication entries in Infoscience in 2020
298
15
people trained (Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students, lecturers, and researchers)
training sessions (representing a total of 17 hours)
15,000
32
annual budget for purchasing books (CHF)
new electronic titles
1 Global Issues video published on YouTube and watched by 250 people between March and May 2020
3 Golden Open Access publications received financial support from the EPFL Library (one in Nature and two in Cogitatio)
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202 new printed volumes
1 Zoom Q&A session with 25 students
Public outreach
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
ARTLAB/EPFL PAVILIONS ArtLab rebranded as EPFL Pavilions 2020 Exhibitions Events and partnerships Upcoming exhibitions
CDH-CULTURE 2020 events Daily free-ticket giveaways Artwork displayed on the EPFL campus
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM The program 2020 artists in residence 2019 artist in residence exhibition
2020 HIGHLIGHTS CHIC program students develop a connected device Lecture series on the digital humanities Interviews with researchers on the effects of 2020 lockdown
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PUBLIC OUTREACH
CDH serves as a natural bridge between culture, art and campus life on one hand, and teaching, research and technological innovation on the other. We also play an important role in spurring public debate on key current issues. Our public outreach initiatives are spearheaded mainly by ArtLab/ EPFL Pavilions, CDH-Culture and our artist in residence program. Many of the exhibitions and events we had planned in 2020 had to be postponed or canceled due to the pandemic-related restrictions, although we were able to present some of our work to the general public. More specifically, ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions held three exhibitions and four open-air cinema nights and contributed to several online events, while CDH-Culture held four events that attracted a large audience, put on an exhibition exploring the architecture of utopian futuristic cities and installed a nine-meter-high sculpture at the Rolex Learning Center. At CDH, we also published a series of video interviews where EPFL researchers discuss how the lockdown has affected their work and teaching. Our 2020 artists in residence – Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson – were able to collaborate remotely with EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory and display the results of their work. However, the exhibition showcasing the work of our 2019 artist in residence, Nora Al-Badri, had to be postponed several times and is now scheduled to open in March 2021. 60
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
ARTLAB/EPFL PAV I L I O N S 2020 was punctuated by major events such as ArtLab’s participation in the World Economic Forum and preparations for the new EPFL Pavilions brand launch.
Despite the pandemic and Pavilion B being closed for eight
ArtLab rebranded as EPFL Pavilions
months, ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions had the honor of hosting three
We rebranded ArtLab in 2020 in order to align our exhibition
exhibitions in 2020: Infinity Room 2, which was to be extended;
center more closely with the EPFL brand, to link its name with
Hope, the Prix Pictet exhibition that was held on schedule,
the pavilions in the Kengo Kuma building, and to underscore
providing a glimmer of hope that things will soon return to
the image of EPFL Pavilions as an open space for experimental
normal; and Nature of Robotics, an Expanded Field, which
art and science and cutting-edge dialogue. In addition to
opened at the end of the year, after being postponed three
changing the center’s name, we undertook an entire rebranding
times. This latter exhibition was open for only a few days in
process to reposition the EPFL Pavilions identity. The process
2020 but should go on display again in March 2021, in line
included designing a fresh logo, creating new building signage
with the planned reopening of cantonal museums.
and revamping the website – all with the goal of bringing
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View of the exhibition Nature of Robotics: An Expanded Field EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion B Photo : Alain Herzog
EPFL art and science into focus. The new brand identity was developed by Knoth & Renner, a German agency whose bid was selected out of the six agencies invited to participate in our request for proposals.
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PUBLIC OUTREACH
2020 Exhibitions •
←
Infinity Room 2
Infinity Room 2 exhibition EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion B Archival Constellations - Jazz Luminaries Full dome eM+ Photo: Catherine Leutenegger
13 September 2019 to 29 March 2020 Based on collected archives, documents and assemblages, Infinity Room 2 delved into EPFL’s rich history through eight exhibits: Open Science, Archives de la Construction Moderne, Alain Herzog Archive, Campus Chronicles, Constellations Archives, Super-vision, Balélec Nights and Shadows of Drones. The exhibition also explored
•
Hope, the 2020 Prix Pictet exhibition
the various ways in which institutional archives can evolve
4 September to 4 October 2020
and examined the history of archival creation. Infinity
At the start of the 2020–2021 school year, ArtLab/EPFL
Room 2 was designed as a modern-day “cabinet of
Pavilions hosted the Prix Pictet exhibition for the second
curiosities,” drawing on augmented reality, virtual reality,
time. This time the exhibition was a traveling one titled
visualization, interactivity and machine learning technology
Hope, which opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum
developed at over 50 EPFL labs.
in London and was showed in Tokyo, Zurich and Moscow before going on display at ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions here in Lausanne. Hope features the work of the 12 finalists of the 2019 Prix Pictet, who were selected from the over 600 artists who applied. Their images reveal moments of triumph in the face of adversity and the accomplishments of all those who are working to preserve the environment. A true testament to how an optimistic attitude can spur change.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
•
Nature of Robotics, an Expanded Field 11 December 2020 to 25 April 2021 This exhibition walks visitors through emerging perspectives and future scenarios related to the field of robotics. The premise is to give visitors an unconventional look into this rapidly expanding field, by bringing together works of art and research prototypes developed right here in EPFL labs. Nature of Robotics aims to broaden visitors’ comprehension of this continuously evolving field, which can be achieved only at the confluence of science and art. The modular, reconfigurable, flexible, micro- and bio-robots on display reflect just a few of the emerging technologies coming out of today’s labs.
←
Sarah Kenderdine, director of EPFL Pavilions and Giulia Bini, curator Nature of Robotics: An Expanded Field EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion B Installation : Katja Novitskova, Pattern of Activation (Mamaroo nursery, dawn chorus), 2017 Courtesy : the artist and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin. Photo: Alain Herzog
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View of the exhibition Prix Pictet 2019 - Hope EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion B Photo: Alain Herzog
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PUBLIC OUTREACH
Events and partnerships
Several one-of-a-kind events were held in person
ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions strengthened its digital presence in 2020
Four open-air film screenings were put together as part of the
through the introduction of virtual tours for each of the three
Geneva International Film Festival, and the “Be Ariel F” evening
exhibitions mentioned above.
of theater was held live and broadcast from Théâtre de Vidy.
We also supported various initiatives by the EPFL community to explore the different facets of digital culture. Examples include the Curve Festival run by EPFL students, the PIC (Programme d’Innovations Culturelles) initiative, and the ScienceCommHack hackathon held in association with CERN.
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Open-air cinema, EPFL Pavilions – EPFL Esplanade Photo: Alain Herzog
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Upcoming exhibitions Babylonian Vision – الرؤية البابلية 9 March to 21 March, 2021 2019 Artist-in-Residence Showcase: Nora Al-Badri Watt is Art 26 March to 25 April, 2021 Photovoltaic Art Exhibition Asclepios 3 May to 25 May, 2021 A do-it-yourself space mission designed and run by EPFL students Technorama 14 June to 4 July, 2021 Exhibition of the Winterthur museum’s showcase for 2021. A special opening ceremony will be held on 11 June with EPFL President Martin Vetterli. Deep Fakes 16 September 2021 to 6 February, 2022 While the political uses of fake news to manipulate and mislead are making headlines worldwide, another kind of “fake” has arisen that combines advanced computational photography with computer graphics and art. In the world of cultural heritage, the term “deep fake” has taken on an entirely different meaning – one that invokes unparalleled intimacy with objects of art and architecture while at the same time challenging authority and yielding new democratic modes of access.
More information about EPFL Pavilions’ upcoming exhibitions and the people making them possible is available in the EPFL Pavilions 2020 Annual Report.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
PUBLIC OUTREACH
C D H - C U LT U R E Our CDH-Culture schedule was disrupted in 2020, as many events were postponed or canceled. However, our staff members were able to host many inspiring moments – whether artistic, cultural or intellectual – as well as creative endeavors and fruitful meetings. Thanks to their ingenuity, patience, perseverance and agility, our team successfully put together around a dozen events and exhibits in the public spaces on the Lausanne campus, with displays of music, dance, the performing arts, modern art and science fiction. Some of the events and exhibits were created by our teachers and students, others by young or established artists. But they were all designed to evoke key societal issues and stimulate different forms of thinking and creativity.
2 & 12 March Sensory exploration How would you experience the places you visit on a daily basis if you were stripped of your eyesight? In this exhibition, members of the EPFL community took a physical and sensory journey through the Rolex Learning Center, guided by dancers from the Utilité Publique dance company led by Corinne Rochet and Nicholas Pettit. These journeys, which opened visitors’ eyes and minds, had to be canceled upon Switzerland’s first lockdown.
2020 events 12–19 February Soundpainting Constance Frei, a musicologist, worked in association with Le Musical EPFL to organize a Soundpainting workshop given by Walter Thompson, the man who invented this live-composition artform. Around a dozen students took part in the workshop and put on two public events at ArtLab/ EPFL Pavilion A: one was a cinema screening with live music, and the other a musical performance.
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Sensory wanderings through Rolex Learning Center Photo : Virginie Martin Nunez
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Ceremony for the exhibition Quand la ville du futur se rêvait utopique (When the city of the future was a utopian dream) at Rolex Learning Center Photo : Virginie Martin Nunez
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
29 September Utopia/Dystopia Can images be used to convey abstract concepts like utopia and dystopia? Students in the Artistic Practices A class, given by Frank Westermeyer and Aurélie Pétrel as part of the SHS program, took photographs addressing this question and presented them at an evening event held at ArtLab/EPFL Pavilion A. The presentation was followed by a talk by author and geographer André Ourednik, along with an animated discussion on the utopian visions that animate our imagination and our society.
7–8 October 9 September–14 December
Sevelin moves to EPFL #2
A Utopian Vision of Futuristic Cities
This exhibition spiced up lunch breaks at EPFL. It consisted of
This exhibition, held at the Rolex Learning Center, was
two dance performances: one by Joachim Ciocca on a unicycle,
developed in association with Marc Atallah, the director
and the other by Mélissa Guex and Charlotte Vuissoz. The
of the La Maison d’Ailleurs science-fiction museum in
short performances, which were given in ArtLab/EPFL Pavilion
Yverdon-Les-Bains. Using a collection of science-fiction
A, combined elements of krumping, circus acts, modern dance
posters and other graphic art forms, it explores how utopian
and improvisation for a fresh, surprising, bold and lively show.
urban architecture was portrayed in the first half of the 20th century.
24 September 2020–30 May 2021 Up#4 This sculpture was designed by a pair of world-renowned, Bern-based artists – Lang/Baumann – specifically for one of the Rolex Learning Center’s patios. It consists of a 9.2-meter-high, white-lacquered tubular structure made of steel and bent into an elongated “U” shape. Poised delicately between balance and imbalance, Up#4 creates a dialogue with the Center’s curved architectural forms.
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The sculpture Up#4 from the pair of Swiss artists Lang/Baumann Photo : Virginie Martin Nunez
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Sévelin moves to EPFL #2, Insaisissable (elusive) by Joachim Ciocca Photo : Joël Curty
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Daily free-ticket giveaways The pandemic drastically reduced the number of events and performances listed on our online agenda, offres-culturelles.epfl.ch. We were able to give away just a few hundred tickets to EPFL students and staff during the brief periods when cultural events could be held. Fortunately, the 70-odd cultural institutions we have been working with on this free-ticket initiative for several years now are eager to pick it back up as soon as possible.
Artwork displayed on the EPFL campus Our CDH-Culture staff members seek to promote the 19 artworks permanently displayed on the Lausanne campus. In 2020, they filmed seven videos describing the stories behind some of these creations. They had to use drones to film sections of the first five sculptures built on our campus back in the early 1980s, due to those sculptures’ large size. Two other sculptures – by Marcel Poncet and Hans Aeschbacher – are on loan from the Swiss federal government and were recently installed at EPFL; they were filmed during the first lockdown. This initiative lets our community enjoy EPFL’s artworks, even from home.
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Jocky 27 (1979), André Nallet. Height: 27 meters, location : Av. Piccard. Photo by drone: Jean-Christophe Hugli Videos of the works of art on campus are available on the EPFL CDH YouTube channel.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM The Program
2019 artist in residence exhibition
Our artist in residence program, introduced in 2019, invites
Nora Al-Badri
artists to spend three to twelve months at CDH working with
Babylonian Vision – الرؤية البابلية
EPFL labs, students and researchers. The goal is to promote
Neuronal Ancestral Sculptures Series
research in the arts by forging ties among the arts, the
Nora Al-Badri, our 2019 artist in residence, created this
humanities, science and technology.
exhibition during her term at EPFL, which was extended until the end of 2020. The exhibition opening was planned for
The artists are selected by a committee, and their work is
November 2020 but had to be pushed back to 2021 as a result
coordinated by ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions, the artistic creation
of the pandemic-related closure of ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions.
and exhibition center they will mainly collaborate with. Under this approach, the artists’ work culminates in an exhibition
Al-Badri worked with three EPFL machine-learning students –
or artistic performance showcasing the synergies that can
Melika Behjati, Negar Foroutan and Kyle Matoba – to develop
be achieved between art and science.
her work. Together they activated neural networks based on general adversarial networks (GAN) technology and trained
2020 artists in residence
them on 10,000 digital images from five museum collections
Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson
of Mesopotamian, Neo-Sumerian and Assyrian artefacts. The
Dubbin and Davidson are interdisciplinary artists based in
collections are housed at institutions including the Metropolitan
Brooklyn, New York, and Northern California. Their work has
Museum of Art in New York City and the Cleveland Museum
been described as addressing processes of transmission
and were accessed through the institutions’ open API.
and reception, interference and transference, often seeking
The images had time and memory etched in them through
to materialize immaterial or ephemeral states of matter.
artefactual patinas such as shards and flakes. Al-Badri and her team entered inchoate inputs into the GAN algorithm
In 2020, they collaborated remotely with EPFL’s Biorobotics
to generate original, synthetic images.
Laboratory, headed by Prof. Auke Ijspeert. This partnership enriched Dubbin and Davidson’s knowledge in the field of soft robotics, leading to the creation of Delay Lines, (feedback) – a structure created for the Nature of Robotics: An Expanded Field exhibition shown at ArtLab/EPFL Pavilions in late 2020.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
PUBLIC OUTREACH
2020 HIGHLIGHTS Below are highlights of our activities in 2020 in each of our three core missions: teaching, research and public outreach.
Check-y
member Maëlick Brochut says: “The process of conducting
CHIC program students develop a connected device
interviews and speaking directly with the people who are
In this project, carried out as part of the China Hardware
affected by this issue was essential. I would definitely follow
Innovation Camp (CHIC), an interdisciplinary group of five
that approach again if I had the opportunity to develop a new
students overcame the challenges of the pandemic
product in the future.”
to implement a socially conscious design process. Their work underscores the importance of interdisciplinary
The Shockey team members:
research to the fluid creative process promoted by CHIC.
•
Diane Marquette (EPFL)
Diane Marquette, one of the students on the project, explains:
•
Taavet Kangur (EPFL)
“What really stood out for me was how much flexibility we
•
Maëlick Brochut (EPFL)
had.” The team – which dubbed themselves the “Shockeys” –
•
Marine Fondin (ECAL)
pooled their skills to create an app-enabled headband
•
Nicolas Mauroux (UNIL)
called “Check-y” to measure the magnitude of head impacts in high-contact sports such as hockey. The headband was designed and tested through several rounds of feedback from athletes, parents and coaches. Early interviews with these users helped the students identify concussion-detection as a “big need” and enabled them to continue developing their system despite the pandemicinduced constraints. Taavet Kangur, another Shockey member, says: “We spent the lockdown crammed up at home. I had to turn my kitchen into a makerspace with a 3D printer and a soldering iron.” User tests performed during the CHIC summer-school session helped the team regain momentum coming out of lockdown. All the students involved learned important methods for community engagement that they will take with them throughout their careers. Shockey
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Team meeting before pitching for the first milestone. Photo : Taavet Kangur
↱
Talk by Prof. Gerhard Lauer, University of Basel: Reading with machines. Reading and writing in the digital age.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
DH Research Seminar
The 2020 speakers covered a large palette of topics,
A lecture series on the digital humanities
from literature and music to video games, such as:
The DH Research Seminar is a lecture series run by the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI). It includes talks by researchers in
•
Looking Beyond the Staff Lines and Listening Behind
a wide range of fields and backgrounds from both Switzerland
the Sound: Novel Applications of Two Old-Fashioned
and abroad. The goal is to present the vast array of subjects
Paradigms to the Analysis of Musical Harmony
covered in the field of digital humanities. The lectures all
Dr. Thomas Noll, Catalonia College of Music, Spain
include Q&A sessions at the end to facilitate open discussion among researchers and students.
•
Reading with Machines: Reading and Writing in the Digital Age
Several talks had to be canceled in the spring of 2020 as
Prof. Gerhard Lauer, University of Basel
a result of the pandemic, but the series picked up again in the fall with online presentations given to enthusiastic
•
participants. Giving talks online does have some advantages,
From Digital Humanities to Game Studies Dr. Yannick Rochat, UNIL & EPFL
such as letting people from around the world participate. •
Quantitative Approaches to Historical Texts: Should You Care about OCR? Dr. Simon Hengchen, University of Helsinki, Finland
• →
Videos of the DH Research Seminar talks can be viewed online at dhi.epfl.ch.
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
PUBLIC OUTREACH
COVID-19 – What’s Changed
Researchers interviewed:
Interviews with EPFL researchers on how Switzerland’s
•
Anna Fontcuberta i Morral
first lockdown affected their work
•
Simon Dumas Primbault
CDH journalist Anne Laure Gannac interviewed EPFL professors
•
Marie-Valentine Florin
and PhD students in April and May 2020 – right in the middle
•
Vincent Kaufmann
of the first lockdown – about the changes they had to make
•
Melanie Blokesch
to their research and teaching.
•
Roland Tormey
•
Blagovesta Pirelli
What she found offers comprehensive insight into the effects
•
Michael Herzog
that an almost complete lack of face-to-face discussion,
•
Anne-Laure Mahul-Mellier
a slowdown in business activity and an intense, weeks-long
•
Francesco Stellacci
media focus on one particular subject can have on
•
Magalí Lingenfelder
the scientific community.
•
Dominique Foray
•
Wendy Lee Queen
•
Solomzi Makohliso
• →
Gannac’s videos are available
The questions Gannac asked were: •
How has the lockdown affected your subject of research or teaching?
•
What will this experience change in your area of research?
•
How did you use digital technology in your work before the pandemic hit, and afterwards?
•
Which of this technology do you plan to keep using after the pandemic is over?
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on CDH’s YouTube channel.
Finances and personnel
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EXPENSES Full-year expenditure by sector and funding source Expenditure of third-party funding by funding source
HUMAN RESOURCES Staff distribution by category Staff distribution by funding source Staff distribution by gender Staff numbers
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
FINANCES AND PERSONNEL
EXPENSES
FULL-YEAR EXPENDITURE BY SECTOR AND FUNDING SOURCE (IN CHF)
2,009,523
70%
60%
5,656,127
50%
40%
30%
1,651,538
20%
1,627,130
10%
382,393
0
4% 17%
61%
9,317,188
18%
Internal salaries (EPFL)
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Internal operating costs (EPFL)
External salaries (third-party funding)
External operating costs (third-party funding)
FINANCES AND PERSONNEL
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
EXPENDITURE OF THIRD-PARTY FUNDING BY FUNDING SOURCE (21% OF TOTAL EXPENDITURES IN CHF) 70%
60%
50%
40%
832,796
734,347
30%
380,569
20%
10%
61,812
0
3% 41%
19%
2,009,523
37%
SNSF
Private and non-profit foundations
H2020
Various
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
FINANCES AND PERSONNEL
HUMAN RESOURCES On December 2020 we bid farewell to Eliane Gesseney-Laeri, the Human Resources Manager for the CDH, who held the position since 1 July 2014 and was instrumental in CDH's advancement in recent years. She was replaced by François Jaccottet.
STAFF DISTRIBUTION BY CATEGORY
40
40 35 30
29
25 20 15 10
6
5 0
STAFF DISTRIBUTION (FTE) BY CATEGORY 40
33.6
35 30 25 20
20.3
15 10
5.8
5 0
Administrative and technical personnel
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Academic personnel
Professors and Senior Scientists
FINANCES AND PERSONNEL
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
STAFF DISTRIBUTION BY FUNDING SOURCE Category
BY GENDER Internal funding
Third-party funding
Total
Women
Men
Total
Administrative and technical personnel
26
3
29
19
10
29
Academic personnel
25
15
40
17
23
40
Professors and Senior Scientists
6
0
6
2
4
6
TOTAL
57
18
75
38
37
75
STAFF DISTRIBUTION (FTE) BY FUNDING SOURCE Category
BY GENDER (FTE) Internal funding
Third-party funding
Total
Women
Men
Total
Administrative and technical personnel
18.1
2.2
20.3
13.1
7.2
20.3
Academic personnel
14.8
18.8
33.6
13.3
20.3
33.6
Professors and Senior Scientists
5.8
0
5.8
2
3.8
5.8
TOTAL
38.7
21.0
59.7
28.4
31.3
59.7
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Staff
33
58
52
74
75
Staff (FTE)
28.1
42.5
41.4
56.4
59.7
Share of women (FTE)
11.4
18.9
18.1
27.4
28.4
STAFF NUMBERS (2016-2020) Category
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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION MAPS
INTERDIS CIPLINARY C O L L A B O R AT I O N M A P S CDH has around 70 researchers and project managers from a wide variety of academic backgrounds. They work with scientists and engineers both inside and outside EPFL to incorporate methods and approaches from other disciplines into their practice, further expanding the interdisciplinary nature of their endeavors.
We also give classes in the humanities and social sciences
This is depicted in the five interdisciplinary collaboration
to all EPFL students, across all schools and colleges, through
maps below, which provide an overview of how we bring
our SHS program. This program includes over 140 classes that
different fields of study together within the broader Swiss
students can chose from on topics ranging from anthropology
research ecosystem, based on the three divisions
and design to ethics, outsider art, history and mythology.
of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF):
Interdisciplinary collaboration is the cornerstone of nearly
1.
Humanities and social sciences
everything we do at CDH, whether in our research, teaching
2.
Mathematics, natural sciences and engineering
or public outreach activities.
3.
Biology and medicine
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Data visualization: Shin Alexandre Koseki, 2021
Each colored circle represents a research discipline according to the SNSF classification, and the size of the circle corresponds to how many projects involve that discipline. The lines between circles indicate how many times the two disciplines were involved in the same project. Map 1 shows that disciplines tend to associate more frequently with other disciplines in the same division, but also reveals the extent of interdisciplinary collaboration.
This map shows all the various disciplines involved in SNSF-funded research projects that started between 2017 and 2020.
The first map is intended to establish an overall framework based on data from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The idea is to position our interdisciplinary approach within Switzerland’s current research ecosystem.
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION MAPS College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Fig. 1 SNSF interdisciplinary projects
81
82
Data visualization: Shin Alexandre Koseki, 2021
For example, it indicates that our staff members have developed targeted expertise in the humanities and social sciences, and that their work also extends to the SNSF’s two other divisions, and particularly to computer science and mathematics.
Map 2 uses the same discipline classification as above to show how our researchers and project managers are positioned within Switzerland’s current research ecosystem.
Our interdisciplinary approach includes the cross-disciplinary range of skills, background, knowledge and experience that our researchers and project managers have built up individually and bring to the work they do.
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020 INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION MAPS
Fig. 2 Interdisciplinary skills of individual CDH researchers and project managers
Data visualization: Shin Alexandre Koseki, 2021
In this map, the size of each circle corresponds to how often that discipline was involved in a joint initiative, and the lines between circles reflect how many times the two disciplines were involved in the same initiative.
It clearly indicates that such initiatives give our staff members an opportunity to broaden the disciplinary scope of their work, especially with regard to the SNSF’s two other divisions.
Map 3 shows which disciplines our staff members generally team up with to supplement their own expertise when working on joint research, teaching or public outreach initiatives.
Our interdisciplinary approach also encompasses the joint initiatives we carry out with other EPFL units as well as other institutions.
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION MAPS College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Fig. 3 Interdisciplinary collaboration by CDH researchers and project managers involved in joint initiatives
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84
Data visualization: Shin Alexandre Koseki, 2021
This interdisciplinary education serves to enhance students’ understanding of the cultural and societal issues associated with their studies in science, engineering and architecture.
This map indicates that the humanities and social sciences are the starting point for most SHS program classes, but also that students’ education in these disciplines is enhanced with contributions from the natural sciences and engineering, as well as in the health and life sciences.
Map 4 shows how our interdisciplinary approach at CDH enhances the education received by all EPFL students.
Our SHS program gives EPFL students a further opportunity to develop their interdisciplinary skills.
College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020 INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION MAPS
Fig. 4 Interdisciplinary collaboration in the SHS program
Data visualization: Shin Alexandre Koseki, 2021
This map can be used to evaluate how the SNSF currently operates and to help us outline the main focus areas for CDH in the coming years.
Map 5 indicates that through our various activities, we form ties with an array of disciplines spanning most of the SNSF classification.
We also superimposed these three maps onto Map 1, which shows the various disciplines involved in SNSF-funded research projects that started between 2017 and 2020, in order to illustrate how our interdisciplinary approach fits into Switzerland’s current research ecosystem.
Interdisciplinary skills of individual CDH researchers and project managers Interdisciplinary collaboration in joint initiatives Interdisciplinary collaboration in the SHS program
Map 5 superimposes three of the maps discussed previously, in order to show how our various interdisciplinary forms fit together. The three maps are:
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION MAPS College of Humanities - Annual Report 2020
Fig. 5 Interdisciplinary collaboration in CDH activities
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PUBLISHER College of Humanities (CDH)
CONCEPT AND WRITING College of Humanities (CDH)
CONCEPT AND GRAPHIC DESIGN Oxyde
DATA VISUALIZATIONS Shin Alexandre Koseki
PHOTOGRAPHY College of Humanities (CDH) Alain Herzog Shutterstock iStock image
PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY A point nommé
TRANSLATION, PROOFREADING AND EDITING Christopher Scala and Sylvia Smith Philippe Barraud Marco Di Biase
PRINTING Repro - Centre d'impression EPFL Papier FSC © CDH, June 2021
MANAGEMENT Béla Kapossy, Dean Gabriela Tejada, Academic deputy
ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCES Nicole Aghroum, responsable administrative et financière
COMMUNICATIONS Virginie Martin Nunez, Communication manager Celia Luterbacher, Journalist
CDH-CULTURE Véronique Mauron Layaz, CDH-Culture manager
SHS PROGRAM Néjia Dahmouni Martin, SHS program coordinator Christine Farget, Administrative assistant, Global Issues program
INSTITUTE FOR AREA AND GLOBAL STUDIES (IAGS) Isabelle Hügli, Administrative assistant
DIGITAL HUMANITIES INSTITUTE (DHI) Kathleen Collins, Deputy of section Jocelyne Vassalli, Administrative assistant
EPFL PAVILIONS Anne-Gaëlle Lardeau, Manager Aurélie Nicoulaz, Administrative assistant
CONTACT CDH-EPFL Centre Midi CM 2 267 Station 10 CH-1015 Lausanne
@EPFLcdh cdh.epfl.ch