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CSS Newsletter | July 2025

15.07.2025 | You recieve this mail because you subscribed to the newsletter of Critical Scientists Switzerland.

Dear Visitor 

We are thrilled to announce the publication of our first book, Towards Convivial Sciences: Uniting Strands of Critical Inquiry, which is the result of our collaborative project on critical science and the obstacles to its flourishing.

We have also written a response in the consultation on the special law for "new" genetic engineering technologies, the "Federal Act on Plants from New Breeding Technologies".

Best regards, the executive directors,

Tamara Lebrecht & Ephraim Pörtner

1. Towards Convivial Sciences

New Book of Critical Scientists Switzerland

Our book "Towards Convivial Sciences: Uniting Strands of Critical Inquiry" is out now.

This book takes a critical look at the dominant model of science: shaped by colonialism, imperialism, a belief in human control over nature, and economic pressures. It reveals how this model—purportedly neutral and universal—is in fact deeply political and reductionist. We ask what other forms of science we might aspire to. Bringing together decolonial, feminist, and ecological perspectives, we propose more democratic, humble, and pluralistic ways of knowing and researching the world: convivial sciences.

2. CSS Response to the Federal Consultation on the

"New Breeding Technologies Act, NZTG"

To Federal Councilor Rösti & the Federal Office for the Environment

There's no scientific basis for a special law: 'new' genetic engineering is still genetic engineering; the term 'new breeding technologies' is misleading, as is the justification for a special law.

With the proposed 'Federal Act on Plants from New Breeding Technologies' (the Breeding Technology Act, or NZTG for short), the Federal Council is accommodating the genetic engineering lobby's wish to avoid regulating organisms modified by targeted genetic engineering techniques (such as CRISPR-Cas9) under the existing Genetic Engineering Act (GTG). However, this would be problematic both legally and scientifically.

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