Career and leadership development
Postdocs, like all scientific employees, are responsible for their own professional development and need to proactively plan and manage their career. Planning the next career steps requires careful thought, preparation, and significant time investment. While supervisors and ETH Zurich’s support services offer guidance, the primary responsibility lies with the postdocs themselves.
The ETH Zurich HR department provides valuable recommendations and tools for career planning. More information is available on these websites:
- Plan your career early on – Staffnet | ETH Zurich
- Career planning – My Future – Staffnet | ETH Zurich
At the start of a postdoc position, it is highly recommended to discuss career plans with the host professor. The career planning form can serve as a useful tool for structuring these discussions.
Additionally, career conversations with the supervisor should take place annually. Further information can be found here:
To further support postdocs, the ETH Lifelong Learning Hub (L3H) helps integrate continuous learning into daily work, strengthening social and leadership competencies, and optimizing professional potential – many aspects of which are directly relevant to career development.
Since permanent positions in academia are limited, it is advisable to also explore career opportunities beyond academia (see external page Changing demographics of academic careers).
All researchers in leadership or supervisory positions are responsible for providing the best possible support to junior scientists. To foster a positive work culture that encourages personal development and enables individuals to contribute their unique talents and strengths, it is essential that all ETH employees have the opportunity to develop their social and leadership competencies.
These key competencies include: acting responsively, nurturing well-being, driving innovation, fostering inclusivity, building bridges, and empowering others.
All supervisors must adhere to the ETH Zurich Guidelines on Scientific Integrity, which apply not only to the hosts of postdocs but also to postdocs themselves when they support and supervise Bachelor, Master or doctoral students.
Please note especially Art. 9 of the guidelines:
Scientists and scholars who hold a leadership and/or supervisory position shall ensure the best possible individual support for junior scientists and scholars and for scientific staff in their academic or professional careers by:
a. maintaining a balance of support and personal responsibility in supervision that is appropriate to the career stage and enabling junior researchers to develop into independent scientists through increasingly independent work;
b. creating a respectful and supportive working climate in their area of responsibility with adequate opportunities for development, participation and shaping;
c. providing, as far as possible, the necessary material and spatial resources;
d. promote integration into the scientific community as well as personal professional and interdisciplinary further qualification through appropriate measures. Examples of suitable measures are an open exchange with other research groups, attendance at courses or summer schools, participation in congresses or temporary stays at other institutions.
Together with partners, ETH Zurich offers a number of career building programmes for female researchers, such as the highly regarded external page Foster-Lead-Promote programme (formerly: Fix the leaky pipeline), the external page CONNECT program for female researchers interested in a career in industry, or external page feminno for a career in the Life Sciences.