Highlights of 2013
The new annual report of ETH Zurich has just been published. As always, it provides an overview of the milestones reached during the financial year, along with facts and figures on teaching, staff, finance, research and the environment.
What does an ant have to do with the new annual report of ETH Zurich? In 2013, physicists at the Quantum Device Lab succeeded in teleporting information in a solid state system for the first time. The ant depicted on the title page of the new annual report illustrates the relative proportions of the electrical circuits used for the teleportation. This research milestone is of particular interest as such circuits may be important elements for the construction of quantum computers in the future.
Donations enable new institute
To enhance and promote research in its most important strategic areas, ETH Zurich maintains close relationships with funding partners. In the reporting year, it received two particularly generous donations from ETH alumnus Max Rössler and the Walter Haefner Foundation. The funds enabled ETH Zurich to establish the new Institute for Theoretical Studies (ETH-ITS) and thereby implement the visionary idea of having a think tank at the university.
In the reporting year, ETH Zurich was also successful with regard to knowledge and technology transfer: more than a hundred patents were registered from the field of scientific research. Twenty-four spin-off companies were founded by members of the ETH community, a pleasing number of which received awards. Technology transfer will also be accelerated by the second Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab (ieLab), which opened in Hönggerberg in 2013.
More than 18,000 students for the first time
By continuously improving its teaching, ETH Zurich consolidated its position as an outstanding educational institution. The university's long-term growth trend continued in 2013: for the first time ever, more than 18,000 students were enrolled at ETH Zurich at the end of the year. The number of new admissions increased by around four percent. The three most popular courses were Mechanical and Process Engineering, Architecture and Health Sciences and Technology, introduced in 2011.