Partner with us
The Cortona Week is currently self-funded. Your contributions are essential to sustain the next edition and widen access to Cortona Week.
Across 36 editions, more than 3,000 people have taken part in this transformative experience.
Why now
Problems are connected but education remains divided
The most consequential problems of our time connect scientific, social, cultural and ethical questions. Yet universities and professions still organise knowledge into separate disciplines. That depth is essential, but depth alone does not teach people how to meet another form of knowledge, remain with uncertainty or recognise the consequences of what they know.
At a time when technology can produce information and persuasive answers at scale, embodied attention, ethical reflection, imagination and dialogue across difference become more, not less, important.
The Cortona response
Not what we know, but what knowing does to a person
Cortona Week creates four conditions that work together: sustained time, a place apart, more than one way of knowing, and a community across boundaries.
For one full residential week, lectures, small-group dialogue, artistic and contemplative practice, meals and unscheduled time become one possible educational method.
The evidence
A programme with a long record
- 36 editions since 1985
- More than 3,000 participants from over 50 countries
- Four decades of archives and participant testimony
- Six editions organised independently after ETH Zurich’s support ended
- An independent Swiss association connected to ETH Zurich through its alumni
What partnership enables
Four things support makes possible
Participant access
Tiered fees and scholarships keep the room socially, generationally and professionally mixed.
A full residential programme
Support helps speakers and professional workshop leaders remain for the whole week and take part in the programme’s shared life.
Evidence and learning
Documentation and evaluation make the model accountable, improve future editions and preserve knowledge accumulated since 1985.
Continuity between editions
Stable support makes careful planning, administration and communication possible throughout the year.
Ways to partner
How organisations can take part
01
Foundation support
Support the next edition, scholarships, documentation or the Association’s organisational development.
02
Academic partnership
Nominate participants, contribute intellectual leadership, support credit recognition or explore a long-term institutional relationship.
03
Scholarship partnership
Fund participation for students and early career professionals who could not otherwise participate.
04
Programme partnership
Contribute relevant expertise while respecting the programme’s curatorial independence and full-week method.
The next chapter
An independent home for Cortona Week
The Cortona Week Association organises the programme independently in Switzerland. ETH Alumni Cortona Week maintains its connection to the university where it began, and to its students and alumni. The two share leadership and a mission while maintaining separate governance and accounts.
We are preparing the next edition of Cortona Week and welcome conversations with foundations, universities, organisations and philanthropists interested in participant access, interdisciplinary education and the programme’s long-term continuity.