1973–2005: Greater flexibility, more information technology
The last quarter of the 20th century will go down in history as a period of increasing flexibility of exchange rates and personal life-plans, an era of computer-assisted information processing and, finally, as the age of globalisation. All universities were affected by these processes – and nearly all played a role in them and benefited from them.
Key dates for this period:
Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1976 | Project-based POST course in Faculty X |
| 1981 | Foundation of the faculties of Computer Science and Materials Science |
| 1985 |
|
| 1987 | Introduction of Environmental Science |
| 1989 | Operational and Production Science becomes a separate faculty |
| 1989 | Introduction of the matrix structure is completed, ETH is now divided into faculties and departments |
| 1993 | New Federal Institutes of Technology Act (FIT Act) comes into force |
| 1999 | The faculties are abolished |
| 2004 | Revised FIT Act brings budget autonomy |
Development in three stages
Development at ETH Zurich proceeded in three stages.
- It began with the institutional reforms and experiments of the 1970s which attempted to make the standard curricula more flexible.
- Then – and this shocked many people at first in the 1980s – analogies were drawn between universities and commercial companies.
- Finally, the new Federal Institutes of Technology Act came into force in 1993. The budgetary autonomy that the university as a whole had slowly been acquiring could now gradually be passed on to the departments.
What really acted as a catalyst for greater flexibility were the studies carried out in 1985 and 1986 by the companies Hayek Engineering AG and Häusermann + Co. AG. As a consequence of those studies, ETH was restructured according to the matrix structure that was then standard in industry. Departments that organised research activities were combined with the old faculties responsible for organising teaching. This made the allocation of professorships to departments and faculties more flexible. The new arrangement was a reflection of the growing importance of research for the academic elite establishment and for the university's budget.
Growing organisational challenges in education
However, it was also in the 1980s that the organisational challenges to education began to grow. With three new degree programmes (Computer Science, Materials Science, Environmental Science), numerous postgraduate courses and further training opportunities, a reorganisation in the faculty of Natural Sciences and the reforms to the standard curricula, it became clear that a university also has to take change management into account in its approach to education. Although the matrix structure began to be abandoned again as early as 1993, its introduction in 1987 had brought about big changes in the power structure at the university. It had a lasting effect in bringing about greater flexibility.