The Foodways in West Africa project is a striking example. Coordinated by an interdisciplinary team, it focuses on food practices and their evolution over the past two millennia in the Senegal region. The research combines approaches from botany, organic chemistry, and zoology with archaeology and historical anthropology. It also draws, in a concrete way, on Geneva’s resources: ethnographic collections, herbaria, and pottery conserved at the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Art and History are used to complement and analyze field data.

This intersection of field research and local archives enables a nuanced reinterpretation of food practices, species circulation, and human relationships with plants and animals in postcolonial contexts.

Another example, the project Volatile Cycling and Magma Degassing on Earth and Exoplanets, aims to reconstruct the geological history of rocky planets—Earth, of course, but also exoplanets. By using atmospheric chemistry as an analytical lens, researchers can infer otherwise inaccessible geological characteristics.

This project relies on a synergy between the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Natural History Museum. Mineralogical databases, scientific imaging resources, and access to geological collections make it possible to integrate modeling with material archives in a comparative approach across known planets and distant worlds.

Finally, the partnership surrounding the archaeological site of Tabo, in Sudan, illustrates another facet of the collaboration: the preservation and enhancement of scientific archives. Excavations conducted in the 1960s and 70s yielded valuable documentation, now scattered across the University of Geneva, the Museum of Art and History, and the Natural History Museum.

The current project involves digitizing, inventorying, and cross-referencing these archives—written documents, objects, funerary items, human remains, and fauna—in order to reconstruct the history of this major site of medieval Nubia. Once again, the pooling of scientific and museum expertise enables not only the protection of this heritage, but also its opening to new analyses—including with a view toward restitution.

In another field, the course “Systematics and Biodiversity,” aimed at biology students, also benefits from a close partnership with the City’s institutions. Botanical collections are integrated into the teaching, and the course is enriched by the development of an augmented reality app called ARCA.

This app, created in collaboration with the City's technical and scientific services, allows students to visualize plant morphological features using real specimens, interactive images, and contextualized taxonomic data. It’s a way of linking technological innovation with classical knowledge, while enhancing existing resources.

The humanities are no exception. The “Introduction to Ethnology” course, taught within the ARCAN laboratory, is closely tied to the collections of the Geneva Museum of Ethnography (MEG) and the Museum of Art and History. Students are introduced to issues of provenance, restitution, and intercultural dialogue through objects from museum collections, examined both as artifacts and as witnesses to historical and political narratives.

The goal of this teaching goes beyond the transmission of knowledge: it is also about fostering a critical sensitivity to the history of science, its social implications, and the responsibilities it entails.

Scienscope, the Faculty’s science outreach platform, offers a privileged space for this approach. Organizer of the “Night of Science,” it brings together researchers, technicians, and students each year for demonstrations, workshops, and participatory experiments open to all audiences.

Another flagship initiative is the participatory science project on biodiversity, carried out in partnership with the Canton and the City. It invites residents to observe, record, or even sample Geneva’s fauna and flora, fostering co-construction of knowledge and raising awareness of the local environment.

The Mathém’émerveille Festival also reflects this desire to reconnect with knowledge through play and imagination. Developed with support from the City’s cultural services, it features installations, games, and workshops in various Geneva parks, aiming to give mathematics a lively, sensory, and accessible image.

Designed for family audiences, it also brings together teachers, artists, facilitators, and researchers in a cross-disciplinary program that encourages new ways of thinking about science.

Another notable project is the exhibition Exoplanets — Science & Fiction, developed in collaboration between astrophysicists from the Department of Astronomy and comic book artists. Displayed on the Quai Wilson in spring 2025, it combines scientific rigor with visual storytelling to present recent discoveries about exoplanets through a fictional aesthetic.

The posters, inspired by real data, invite the public to ponder the possibility of distant worlds, the conditions for extraterrestrial life, and the imaginaries surrounding space exploration. Far from being mere artistic embellishment, comic art here becomes a bridge between science, culture, and society.

With this new agreement, the City of Geneva and the University—and in particular its Faculty of Science—reaffirm a shared ambition: to make the city a place where science, heritage, and society meet, question one another, and enrich each other.

Beyond the institutional signing, it’s a mindset that endures—one of open, fertile dialogue among researchers, curators, educators, and citizens who share a passion for understanding and sharing knowledge.

The administrative streamlining brought by this new agreement is more than just a technical gesture. It serves as a concrete lever to bring ideas to life more quickly, support innovative initiatives, and enhance the synergies already thriving on the ground.

Because in Geneva, research does not remain hidden: it takes root in archives, is displayed on museum walls, cultivated in gardens, taught in the open air, and told through the rhythm of the seasons. Perhaps this is where the greatest value of this partnership lies—in the weaving together of science, culture, and society: the ability to conceive of knowledge not as a private domain, but as a living, shared good.