EPFL-UniBas “Stress” project awarded 2020 Agora Prize
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The project “Stress” by Professors Carmen Sandi (EPFL Brain Mind Institute) and Dominique de Quervain (University of Basel) has been awarded the Agora 2020 Prize from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
A major factor for mental and physical health, stress can cause a number of adverse symptoms, including high blood pressure, weight gain, addiction, burn-out, and depression. In 2003, a study by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of the Swiss Government showed that stress causes an economic burden of several billion Swiss francs per year.
In order to achieve better understanding of stress, in 2019 Professors Carmen Sandi at EPFL’s Brain Mind Institute and Professor Dominique de Quervain at the University of Basel, two world-renowned experts on stress research, founded stressnetwork.ch, a national network of more than 30 stress researchers from Swiss universities.
Soon after, the two scientists obtained an SNSF’s 2020 Agora project for their public outreach proposal “Stress”. The project will create a web-based information platform and will organise stress awareness days for the public.
In an announcement today, the SNSF has awarded its Agora Prize to the “Stress” project, assessing it as the best of this year’s Agora projects.