Launch Your Project
EPFL Changemakers
A 12-week program for students ready to embark on a great learning journey, boost their innovation and entrepreneurial skills, reflect on their impact, and turn their idea into real-life project.
Durabilis
The Durabilis Award, introduced in March 2007, is given to student projects that explore issues related to sustainability. The competition is open to all Bachelor’s and Master’s students at EPFL and UNIL. Candidates must have obtained a minimum grade of 5 out of 6 to compete, and both individual and group projects are accepted. The Durabilis Award is supported by EPFL’s Vice Presidency for Responsible Transformation and by the Rectorate of the University of Lausanne.
Make
The MAKE initiative makes it possible to integrate interdisciplinarity, project-based learning, experimentation and prototyping into students’ curricula. The initiative provides teachers with Discovery Learning Labs (DLLs). Spaces including state-of-the-art equipment to offer practical work directly related to research or the industrial environment. Finally, the initiative also provides students (bachelor and master) with a professional consulting service and prototyping spaces to support them in the realization of their open projects.
RebuiLT
rebuiLT is a student-initiated MAKE project that aims to experiment and promote sustainable construction and the implementation of healthier and more frugal lifestyles. Based on the dynamics of the Low Tech Lab Lausanne, this project is taking shape with the construction of a community pavilion in Ecublens, enabling the implementation of construction solutions using reused or bio-sourced materials, low-tech technologies in an urban environment and a participatory construction approach with future users. Students work together to acquire both technical and human skills in a shared-governance organization.
SaiLowTech
“Raising the voice of the Ocean”. This is the mission that the Sailowtech association has set itself! Sailowtech believes in the power of scientific discovery and the transmission of values for the preservation of the oceans and its inhabitants. Concretely, Sailowtech offers sailing as support for low-tech and frugal scientific initiatives and makes scientific research accessible to raise awareness, in order to provide the widest audience with tools for understanding climate issues, without judgment and in respect of the economic and social constraints of each environment.
Low Tech Lab
What if we imagined more sustainable and locally-based technologies? We could choose to use simpler technologies that don't circumnavigate the planet several times before reaching us. This is the vision of technology advocated by the low-tech movement, as opposed to high-tech. These technologies adhere to three key principles in their design: usefulness, accessibility, and sustainability. The Low-tech Lab Lausanne aims to develop the low-tech approach within the EPFL campus and in the Lausanne region, as well as to support projects that embody a technically sustainable and desirable society.
Skil
The Student Kreativity and Innovation Lab (SKIL) is an ENAC initiative, which aims at promoting a new culture at EPFL by encouraging student initiative, creativity, and interdisciplinarity in a workshop environment permitting the realization of hands-on projects. This workshop, officially inaugurated in September 2018, is intended mainly for ENAC students, but is also open to BA and MA students from across EPFL. It supports projects by groups or individual students who wish to develop their own ideas and require a practical learning space.
Enjoy services
Slow ta carrière
The “SLOW TA CARRIERE” professional orientation workshops offer a space for reflection and the development of eco-projects for people wishing to “green” their professional life, by proposing an approach where ecological limits and social responsibility are considered as criteria for career choice, in the same way as the professional interests or the personality of the participants.
association débouchés durables
Débouchés Durables is a center of Unipoly which seeks to make issues concerning sustainability visible in the future experiences (professional, associative, etc.) of students. This involves the proposal of articles on the concept of "sustainable outlets", conferences/events in order to feed the reflection on the matter, a database of companies selected in accordance with a charter of values, and a permanent service to listen to students' questions...
Thrift store UPFashionLab
UpFashionLab is Lausanne's first association dedicated to raising awareness around the fashion industry. The aim is to promote fashion that is shared, recycled and sustainable on campus.
Bibliothèque d’objets
Some of your objects take up space? Don't use them anymore? Are they in good condition? Want to save some space? The library is here! Your objects will have the opportunity to be used and will delight students. It is also possible to lend the objects for a certain time and take them back afterwards. On Wednesday evening from 17pm, the House of Sustainability is open for the loan and reception of objects.
Meubléco
Meubléco is a project run by the Unipoly association, aiming to promote eco-friendly practices and sustainability at the Unil-EPFL campus. It started in the fall of 2020 with a simple goal: encouraging the reuse of furniture. Meubléco allows students to buy and sell second-hand furniture at budget-friendly prices, making sustainable choices accessible to the Unil-EPFL community.
Fix n’Replace
Fix N’Replace organizes a series of "Repair Café" events on the UNIL/EPFL campuses. The organization's goal is to combat waste by extending the lifespan of various objects. They aim to promote reuse by providing easy access to repair services and teaching the fundamentals of repair🐣.
Point vélo
Point Vélo is a place where EPFL community members can buy new and used bikes and cycling gear at reduced prices, get affordable bike repairs, and attend free bike mechanics classes. These products and services are available only to EPFL community members. You will be asked to present your Campiro card.
Point Smart
Point Smart extends the life of mobile phones by offering a at cost price repair service at the Poseidon premises on the Ecublens campus. This service is available daily from noon to 2 p.m.
Take Action
Unipoly
Unipoly aims to mobilize and initiate discussion on societal topics related to ecology among UNIL and EPFL students. To do this, the association is committed to the various authorities of these schools and it organizes film screenings, conferences, debates and many other projects, through its various poles.
Polyquity
Polyquity is a commission of AGEPoly, the student association of EPFL. Its main objectives are to provide open discussions on issues of discrimination and to raise awareness on campus about existing discriminations and ways to combat them. To achieve this, it organizes coffee discussions, workshops, and is responsible for the Instagram account "payetonepfl," which exposes and highlights discriminatory situations experienced on the EPFL campus, as well as numerous other projects to make everyday life at EPFL sustainable and inclusive for everyone.
Queermanence
Queermanence aims to be a caring and confidential listening space. This place exists to give an initial warm support but also to help to find a staff (health, social or legal) trained and adapted to your needs. Queermanence's objective is to offer support during challenging times, such as instances of physical or verbal violence, harassment, and gender discrimination, while also providing guidance on gender, sexual, and intimate questions.
Zero Emission Group
Zero Emission Group is a student led initiative aimed at raising awareness and working with stakeholders on and beyond the EPFL campus in order to catalyze sustainable action. 🌍
Ingénieur·e·s du monde
Ingénieur·e·s du Monde (Engineers of the World) is a student association of EPFL-UNIL. Its objective is to make students aware of being responsible engineers for a fair and sustainable world. This involves informing students about the inequalities in the world, the environmental and ethical problems that exist, and sometimes trying to bring ideas for solutions by collaborating with partners around the world. the association also proposes internships in social sustainability for EPFL and UNIL students.
Ingénieur·e·s Engagé.es
The Ingénieurs Engagés (IE) movement aims to bring together all those who question the role and place of engineers in society. It mainly gathers students and engineers who want to give meaning to their (future) profession, aware of the social and environmental issues that our society must face today.
La Convergence
Behind the aegis of La Convergence are jointly united the associations: Ingénieur·e·s du Monde, Poliquity, Zero Emission Group, Unipoly, and Planqueer. Their grouping gives them strength for action and the ability to organize more ambitious scale actions thanks to the combination of their experiences, their specializations and the grouping of their members.
Amnesty des Hautes Ecoles Lausannoises
The association Amnesty HEL is dedicated to promoting the defense of human rights on Lausanne campuses by raising student awareness of socio-political and environmental issues. Its activities and actions are organized into five sections: Women's Rights, Environment, International Political News, LGBTQ+, and Asylum and Migration. Within these sections, a wide range of events and actions take place, including conferences, film screenings, workshops, and concrete initiatives. These concrete actions involve fighting against menstrual precariousness on campus, organizing sustainability rallies, setting up a podcast, and conducting waste collections. All of these activities are carried out in a caring and inclusive manner.
Apiculture
The goal of the Apiculture project is to raise awareness among students and staff on campus about the issue of bee colony collapse disorder and to become familiar with beekeeping. To do this, the project has its own apiary composed of about 5 hives located on the Bassenges farm estate since early 2017 allowing us to learn about beekeeping and produce honey when the bees have decided to do so.
Jardins - Campus farmers
This project aims to allow students to grow vegetables on their campus in an organic way. Of course it is a learning ground for gardening, but it is also a place where one (re)discovers a relationship with the earth and nature as well as a place for exchange with other students.
Association des étudiant·es végan·es et animalistes
EVA is Unipoly's hub representing vegan students and animal rights supporters. It encourages an ethical and animal-friendly lifestyle, and offers the possibility to feed and live as independently as possible from animal exploitation by significantly increasing the vegan offer in the catering places of university campuses. The EVA also wishes to bring together vegan students and people interested in veganism and animalism in a community focused on discussion and offer support and advice to students and collaborators wishing to adopt a vegan lifestyle.
Drag Lab
People studying, teaching or working at EPFL promoting parity and diversity in the architecture school through readings and discussions.
PlanQueer
PlanQueer is the LGBTQ+ student association of UNIL and EPFL, which work towards better recognition, visibility and protection for queer students on and out of campus, by organising events ranging from small, chill meetups to full on parties with queer artists! Beyond the fun part, they also provide queer students with individual support, and work hard to push the institutions towards a better recognition and support of queer realities.
Inform Yourself
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