“Seed Money”: Three Eucor cross-border projects from Freiburg
Freiburg, 02/02/2026
The tri-national university network Eucor – The European Campus is once again supporting cross-border projects with start-up funding ‘Seed Money’. A total of eight projects were approved, three of which will be led by Freiburg.
In December 2025, the Assembly of the university alliance Eucor selected the projects for the next round of seed money funding based on recommendations from experts from the five member universities. For the ninth year in a row, Eucor – The European Campus is providing financial support for joint projects within the alliance in the areas of ‘teaching’ and ‘research, innovation and transfer’.
Each year, the participating universities contribute €300,000 to a joint funding pot. The member universities use this money to support exchange and networking among researchers and teachers. In the current funding phase, a total of eight projects were approved, three of which will be led by Freiburg.
TriMent Eucor: A multimodal teaching program for medical students on dealing with study-related stress and maintaining mental health in the Upper Rhine region university network
In the TriMent Eucor project, Dr Andrea Kuhnert and her colleagues from Basel and Strasbourg are setting up a joint programme for medical students in Freiburg, Basel and Strasbourg. The evaluated PsyMent project from Freiburg is being transferred to the cooperating clinics and adapted. It supports students in coping better with stress and strengthening their mental health. It includes workshops, mindfulness coaching and online services.
The aim is for students to develop better strategies for coping with stress and to create a permanent trinational network for health promotion. In this way, TriMent Eucor is helping to make future doctors more resilient and to strengthen healthcare in the Upper Rhine region in the long term.
Deadtrees.earth – From drones to AI: cross-border teaching on digital forest monitoring
Deadtrees.earth is a digital web platform for monitoring forests on a global scale. Climate change is causing more and more trees to die – drought, heat and bark beetles are threatening biodiversity and carbon sinks.
The platform uses drones, photogrammetry and artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly and accurately detect tree mortality. Users can upload drone images, perform AI evaluations, visualise results and correct the results directly. In the cross-border teaching project between the Universities of Freiburg and Basel, led by Prof. Dr Teja Kattenborn, students, researchers and practitioners learn about modern methods of digital forest monitoring.
Nanotechnology for wastewater treatment and biomass utilisation
Environmental pollution and the high consumption of fossil raw materials require new, sustainable solutions. This project is developing environmentally friendly nanoparticles that serve as carriers for enzymes. The aim is to investigate the extent to which such systems are suitable for purifying wastewater and for the initial conversion of non-edible biomass.
This enzymatic pretreatment forms the starting point for possible upcycling processes through downstream biological systems. The aim is to develop safe, cost-effective and environmentally friendly approaches for future industrial applications. Scientists from the Universities of Freiburg and Basel and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology are collaborating on the project under the leadership of Prof. Dr Barbara Di Ventura.