The Centre
Facilitating interdisciplinary research and teaching to understand the emergence of life and its place in the Universe.
The Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life is the interdisciplinary research and teaching centre at ETH Zurich focusing on life in the Universe. Established in 2022, COPL brings together more than 40 research groups from seven different departments at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute. Through this collaborative approach, the Centre facilitates ambitious and innovative research and teaching activities, to comprehensively address fundamental questions, such as (1) how did life on Earth begin, (2) how did it develop and proliferate and (3) whether life exists on other planets.
The mission
With the main purpose of fostering interdisciplinarity, COPL promotes flexible forms of scientific collaboration that transcend existing disciplinary boundaries and exploit opportunities and synergies between disciplines. Specifically, the Centre offers an extensive programme that includes cutting-edge interdisciplinary research projects, the recruitment of outstanding talent, the development of an active
scientific networking programme and an interdisciplinary life sciences curriculum.
COPL acts as a co-location hub for researchers from various departments situated on the ETH Zurich campuses, ETH Zentrum and ETH Hönggerberg, as well as at other sites, such as D-BSSE in Basel and the external page Paul Scherrer Institute, thus fostering their continuous engagement with knowledge outside their usual remit. This cross-disciplinary interaction and intellectual stimulus promotes and inspires creative and ambitious interdisciplinary research projects. By bringing together chemists, biologists, geologists, and astrophysicists who share a common scientific vision, the Centre aims to address the following scientific objectives:
- Investigating processes that generate the molecular building blocks for life and drive the transition to emergent biological entities
- Quantifying the ability of planetary environments to meet, maintain and diversify conditions for complex life and how life shapes such environments
- Characterising the diversity of planetary environments and their ability to host life
- Investigating non-standard life and life in extreme environments