Empa

Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, is a research institute of the ETH Domain. It carries out applied materials and technology research for industry and society, with sites in Dübendorf, St. Gallen and Thun.

Empa began in 1880 as a materials testing institute in the cellars of the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich and moved to Dübendorf in 1962. In 2022 its researchers published more than 860 papers and filed 18 patents, and 34 spin-offs and start-ups from Empa employed around 1,100 people.

Together with the water research institute Eawag it runs NEST, a modular research building in Dübendorf that opened in 2016 and is used to test new construction and energy technologies. In its Technology Briefings, Empa presents practical research results to industry. Since 2005 it has co-organised the Tage der Technik with Swiss Engineering, SATW and Swissmem.