University of Zurich, Department of Informatics

Would you trust an artificial pancreas?

Around 30 researchers, healthcare professionals and members of the diabetes community came together at a symposium hosted by the Digital Society Initiative at the University of Zurich.

Organised by Clara-Maria Barth from the Department of Informatics and Federica Zavattaro from the Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care, the event explored how communication shapes trust in digital health technologies.

Discussions covered supportive communication in chronic care, visual storytelling about experiences with diabetes, and the role of transparency and personalisation in open-source artificial pancreas systems. An interactive panel also examined digital health adoption, artificial intelligence and future research priorities.

Read more in the IfI News: https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/would-you-trust-an-artificial-pancreas.html

Artificial intelligence and algorithms are playing a growing role in everyday life, including how we search for information.

As part of the RAISD research project, AlgorithmWatch CH and the Department of Informatics investigated how Google and Bing’s AI-generated answers present the debate around the «10-Millionen-Initiative» and which sources they use.

The results show that AI-generated search summaries increasingly influence which information and sources are seen as relevant.

Read more in the IfI News:

Was macht KI mit Demokratie und Gesellschaft? Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts RAISD (Researching AI, Society & Democracy in Switzerland) untersuchten AlgorithmWatch CH und das Institut für Informatik, wie die KI-generierten Antworten von Google und Bing die Debatte um die «10-Millionen-Initiative» wiedergeben und welche Quellen sie nutzen.

Congratulations to Clara-Maria Barth, Anton Fedosov, Chat Wacharamanotham, Jürgen Bernard and Elaine M. Huang.

They received the Honorable Mention Award at the Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2026 for their paper “How Do I Want to Live with Type 1 Diabetes? Understanding Self-Management Styles to Inform the Design of T1D Technologies”.

The paper looks at how health technologies can better support people living with Type 1 Diabetes. It shows that “doing well” can mean more than clinical metrics such as blood glucose values and time in range. Personal priorities, daily routines and individual definitions of success matter too.

Read the full news on our website: https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/acm-dis-2026-honorable-mention-award.html

What does digital transformation mean for everyday life in Switzerland?

Over the past five years, 46 project teams have explored this question as part of the National Research Programme “Digital Transformation” NRP 77.

The programme brought together research on education, governance, the economy and the labour market. The results include more than 300 publications and reports, along with 12 evidence-based recommendations for shaping digital change responsibly.

💡The main takeaway: Digitalisation is not just a technological development. It is a societal process that affects us all.

Learn more about the findings, interviews and videos here: https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/Abraham-Bernstein-Digitale-Transformation-NRP77.html

Congratulations to Nimra Ahmed on receiving the Engagement Award 2026! 👏

With her commitment as PhD representative at the Institute of Informatics and as co-founder and president of the Women in Informatics Network Zurich, Nimra has made an important contribution to our IfI community.

We are happy to celebrate this well-deserved recognition. Congratulations, Nimra!

Read more in the Faculty’s news article: https://www.oec.uzh.ch/de/current/news/2026/impact-engagement-awards-2026.html

We are proud to share that four of our researchers have been honored with Services Awards at the ACM SIGMOD 2026 conference.

🏆Distinguished Reviewer Awards: Prof. Michael Böhlen, Prof. Sven Helmer, Dr. Haozhe Zhang
🏆Distinguished Associate Editor Award: Prof. Dan Olteanu

Congratulations!

Read more 👉https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/boehlen-helmer-olteanu-Zhang-acm-sigmod-awards.html

Big congratulations to Alberto Bacchelli! The Board of the University of Zurich has promoted him to Full Professor ad personam of Empirical Software Engineering (effective April 1, 2026).

We wish him continued success in his research and teaching!

👉https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/alberto-bacchelli-promotion.html

Big congratulations! 🎊“CaseCompass: Designing Sustainable, Community-Led Socio-Technical Systems for Gender-Based Violence Support Work” (authored by Nimra Ahmed, Sargam Telang, Larissa Senning, Thu An Phan, Tim Portmann, Sandra Rosch, Angelika Strohmayer, and Elaine Huang) has been honored with the Award for Research Teams with Inspirational Research Practices at the ACM CHI 2026.

The jury was particularly impressed by the project’s dedication to human-centered design and its alignment with real-world workflows at Fachstelle Zwangsheirat.

In addition to the team award, the paper also received a Best Paper Honorable Mention Award.

📖 Full story here: https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/CaseCompass-Team-Award-CHI2026.html

Burkhard Stiller, Professor of Communication Systems at the Department of Informatics, examines the implications of reducing complex political decision-making to game-theoretic frameworks.

Read the full article 👉https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/news/burkhard-stiller-prediction-markets.html

The Dynamic and Distributed Information Systems Group is looking for a PhD student interested in human-centered AI and human-AI collaboration.

Learn more about the position and submit your application.

👉 https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/ddis/jobs.html