ETH Exploration Lab

Implementation of the Course

The Exploration Lab is a six-month, full-time master thesis program where interdisciplinary student teams collaborate with leading industry partners. Students work mainly at partner companies in teams of two to four, supported by ETH-employed coaches and a professorial tutor. Over six months, the program unfolds in two phases: Exploration (4 months), where teams investigate multiple industrial innovation ideas, rapidly prototype, and make Go/No-Go decisions; and Deep Dive (2 months), where each student further develops one validated idea into a proof of concept.

The primary teaching goal is to help students navigate uncertainty in innovation, combine their disciplinary expertise with transdisciplinary collaboration, and translate ideas and academic knowledge into prototypes with real industrial relevance. From the industry partners’ perspective, students bring fresh insights to their challenges and act as “knowledge agents” at ETH, bridging the gap between research knowledge and industry value creation.

The program starts with a two-week basecamp, where students get hands-on training in prototyping and lean de-risking methods. The program-level methodology is the “innovation cascade,” where ideas pass through time-boxed treatments with decision points to quickly sort “good” from “bad” ideas. At the project level, students apply ETH-developed “lean de-risking” tools such as the Five-Finger Formula, which provide guidance for tackling uncertainty in innovation.

Students learn primarily through real work combined with intense, frequent reflection. Full-time coaches act almost as facilitators: they moderate the interface with the company, reduce administrative hurdles, challenge students at each step, and trigger reflections on methodology and process. Supervision and feedback are provided through structured formats: daily standups, biweekly 1-on-1s with coaches, weekly industry reviews, monthly team retrospectives, and tutor presentations around Deep Dive.

Student are evaluated along three dimensions (aligned with ETH competence framework):

Attitude & Approach – curiosity, resilience, collaboration, research competence, focus and structure of process.

Results – quality and maturity of proof-of-concept, informative value for industry partner

Communication – clarity of documentation and presentations

The proximity of students to stakeholders ensures faster learning cycles, and working at the site of problem and implementation. At the same time, students benefit from ETH coaching and access to ETH prototyping facilities, such as the ETH Hangar in Dübendorf. This creates an experience akin to an «ETH-guided industry internship».

A custom-built Notion OS serves as the joint digital platform of the program, acting as a “shared brain” that connects all participants. It combines idea management, contribution logging, stakeholder interaction, feedback collection, administrative processes, and knowledge documentation, enabling transparency and collaboration.

Motivation, Project Mission, Vision Statement

Motivation: Switzerland consistently ranks among the most innovative countries, yet too many promising ideas remain untested because of rigid structures and a missing culture of experimentation. The Exploration Lab was created to build the next generation of innovators who break through these barriers—lowering the threshold to test, learn, and iterate. ETH graduates are uniquely positioned for this role: they bring cutting-edge knowledge and sharp minds, but need guidance to navigate the uncertainty of new innovation productively and to justify a lean-agile approach to innovation  in a corporate setting.

At the same time, Swiss industry often struggles to recognize and capture opportunities rooted in ETH research. Innovation ideas are frequently still rather unspecific, making it hard to match them with expertise and collaborators. Project-based courses with industry partners can be leveraged to prototype early solutions, build bridges, and prepare fertile ground for deeper research collaborations.

Mission: We create a rich, real-world learning environment where ETH students explore, test, and validate innovation ideas under corporate conditions—gaining career-relevant competencies while closing the gap between academia and industry and seamlessly kick-start their careers.

Vision: We envision every ETH student having access to programs that shape them into innovation engineers and at the same time serve as the entry point for the Swiss industry to collaborate with ETH.

Innovative Elements

ETH-guided Industry Thesis: Not isolated like a PhD-style academic thesis, nor disconnected like an industry thesis with little ETH contact. Instead combining best of both: Students gain authentic immersion on-site with industry while being supported by dedicated and trained ETH coaches, balancing academic rigor and hands-on engineering.

Student-Driven Topic Discovery: No predefined problems: students learn to identify and shape their own deep-dive topic through a structured exploration process, builds ability to not only solve but identify meaningful problems.

Team-Based Exploration Phase: The early phase is collaborative. Students work in teams, challenge each other, and accelerate learning through peer feedback before individual specialization.

Multi-Topic for Skill Transferability: By exploring across several diverse industry problems, students repeatedly apply methods & skills in new contexts—building adaptability and strong transfer skill across domains.

Effects on Student Learning

After the first execution of the program, we conducted a student survey and analyzed written reflections on their learning journey (published in ETH Learning & Teaching Journal, 2025, link below). Students reported strong gains in problem-solving, project management, creative and critical thinking, communication, teamwork, adaptability, and self-direction. Compared to a traditional thesis, EXL was rated as more engaging, motivating, and better preparation for industry.

Impact continues beyond the thesis: one alumnus joined Bühler and brought his prototype to market; another became lead coach for Bossard and is now set to succeed the retiring CTO as Innovation Manager.

Applications are usually about three times higher than available places. In a few cases, we also admitted outstanding bachelor or semester thesis students, who voluntarily exceeded the usual 2–3 months for such a thesis just to participate.

Which Elements of Your Project Would You Recommend to Others?

Design for a self-sustaining people pipeline. Make the coach role attractive, spot the strongest students early, win them over and prepare them for the coach role (using PBLabs’ offerings). This ensures continuous improvement and scalability. Since partners cover coaching costs, they must see clear value to retain them long-term. Align with their goals and provide a low-uncertainty legal framework on cost, IP, and confidentiality. Build trust. Maximize direct student–industry interaction. On-site embedding works best, but at minimum ensure weekly touchpoints and enable easy collaboration through digital tools. This is how we scaled from single partner in ’23 (Bühler) to five additional in ’25 (VZUG, VAT, Bossard, Sauber, Siemens).