Administrative departments

Corporate Communications (CC) manages ETH Zurich’s internal and external communications. It works in partnership with communications professionals in the academic departments, professorships and central administrative units. It engages in dialogue with the public, disseminates news about the topics that ETH researchers and faculty are working on and reports on what ETH is doing for society. This enhances the university’s reputation in the outside world and promotes society’s acceptance of science. Internally, it contributes towards ensuring that ETH members receive up-to-date information and identify with ETH.

The Academic Services department lays the basic administrative foundations for education and manages the university-wide academic support processes. It provides support for students, doctoral students and teaching staff in all study-related matters, including continuing academic education.

The department Student Services (StS) coordinates all the activities and services for potential and existing students. This includes helping future students to choose a course of studies, and preparing them for the reality of the study programme they have chosen.
There are several points of contact for advice and support available for students during their course of study, such as study organization, learning, time management, student finance, housing, entry into Switzerland, etc. There is also advice for disabled students or those suffering from a chronic medical condition on how to organize their studies and for the special arrangements for performance assessments.

The Unit of Teaching and Learning (UTL) is actively involved in promoting current teaching and its long-term orientation. It supports the development of a clear vision for teaching and is committed to developing and implementing the necessary strategies. The unit initiates and leads ETH-wide initiatives for strategic teaching development, promotes teaching innovations, supports the design of coherent curricula and offers lecturers expertise, support and inspiration for their teaching activities. In addition, it develops instruments for quality assurance and management in the area of teaching as well as offerings that enrich and complement the learning experience of students.

The Grants Office supports researchers in the acquisition and administration of national and international research funds and acts as the Euresearch Regional Office. It manages ETH's internal funding programmes and the offices of the Research Commission and the Prize Commission. The Grants Office also oversees the departmental evaluations.

The administrative department Research Initiatives and Infrastructures takes care of research collaborations that cut across fields and departments, e.g. of scientific networks such as ETH Zurich's Competence Centres or national funding programmes such as NCCR. We are also responsible for ETH's Technology Platforms and the Scientific Equipment Program. An important focus currently is on medical research and innovation, as well as Open Science. We also serve as the interface to numerous other centres and initiatives such as the Singapore-ETH Centre.

The administrative department Scientific Integrity and Research Ethics supports researchers in applying the basic principles of scientific integrity and complying with research-specific ethical and legal standards. Within its area of responsibility, it ensures the development of guidelines and the establishment and further development of suitable structures and processes. The administrative department is divided into the three thematic units “Scientific Integrity”, “Research Ethics” and “Animal Welfare and 3R”.

The Controlling department manages all kind of data about ETH Zurich. The department coordinated the external reporting, creates quarterly management reports and manages the yearly budget process. 

The Accounting department includes financial accounting and mandates, fonds management, accounts payable/receivable accounting as well as reporting, cash and vault management, cost accounting and the internal control system.

The Procurement and Export Services department supports the units of ETH Zurich when it comes to procurement coordination, travel management, partner organisations.

The Real Estate Management department develops and manages the university’s property portfolio, ensures that the value of the buildings is preserved on a long-term basis and provides other infrastructural services.

The Engineering and Systems department will assume overall responsibility for the technical systems and infrastructures at ETH Zurich.

Facility Services ensures that all premises used by ETH Zurich are adequately supplied with energy and utilities and provides technical and infrastructural building management services.

The IT Services department supports education, research and administration by providing services relating to information and communication technology. It also runs the extensive infrastructure, information systems and applications required for this.

We are here for you: for students, researchers and all interested persons. As the central university library of ETH Zurich, we ensure that you are provided with scientific and technical information and advocate the generation, further development and transfer of knowledge in society as a customer-centric trailblazer.

The Campus Services department supports education, research and administration by providing services related to working at the ETH. The department ensures that cooperation in areas such as logistics, mobility, mailservice or parking runs smoothly and takes pressure off organisational units by supporting them with tasks in relation to printing, ensuring the flow of information or events.

The Safety, Security, Health and Environment department advises ETH-members on how to deal with dangers, in order to protect people, infrastructure and environment. Experts are responsible for training the ETH-members in this area. They support employees and students by providing them with material and information.