Assistant professorships
At ETH Zurich, positions at the assistant professor level are aimed at promoting the careers of young scientists and at giving them the opportunity to gain further scientific qualifications in view of an academic career.
Assistant professors are granted substantial funds for personnel and infrastructure, which allows them to carry out independent research. With the promotion of excellent young scientists in mind, as well as in view of the development of their further career, as a general rule, the academic age of assistant professors (e.g. without the time period of maternity leave, industry experience, military service, etc.) should be 35 years or under at the time of appointment. Assistant professorships come with or without tenure track.
Further information regarding assistant professorships and the tenure procedure can be found in the Guidelines for the Assistant Professor System at ETH Zurich.
Particularly brilliant assistant professors with tenure track have the possibility to go through a direct multistage tenure procedure, which examines the suitability of the assistant professor for a permanent position. The decision to initiate the tenure procedure has to be taken by the department, considering the achievements of the assistant professor. The tenure procedure can be applied to any ETH assistant professorship with tenure track, financed through the ETH budget. The tenure procedure cannot be applied to assistant professorships that are financed by third-party funds (for example SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowships, ERC Starting Grants, industry). The President appoints an ETH-wide Tenure Committee, which assists and advises him in the assessment of the applications handed in by the departments and namely guarantees the compliance with ETH-wide standards.
Tenure Committee Meetings 2024
Thursday, 14 March 2024
Thursday, 13 June 2024
Thursday, 12 September 2024
Thursday, 12 December 2024
Documents
- Download vertical_align_bottom Guidelines for the Assistant Professor System at ETH Zurich of February 1, 2015 (PDF, 62 KB)
- Download vertical_align_bottom Geschäftsordnung des Tenure Committee (in German only) (PDF, 177 KB)
- Download vertical_align_bottom Guidelines on How to Avoid Implicit Biases in the Assessment of Assistant Professors (PDF, 33 KB)
- Download vertical_align_bottom Specifications for compiling the tenure dossier (in German only) (PDF, 319 KB)
- protected page lock Sample tenure review letter (DOCX, 32 KB)
- Download lock Summary form for the evaluation of assistant professors (DOCX, 48 KB)
- protected page lock Members Tenure Committee
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) with the SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowships as well as the European Research Council (ERC) with the Starting Grants enable junior researchers with several years of recognised research experience to make a significant step forward in their academic careers. The funding covers the salary of the applicant (at the assistant professor level), a contribution to research costs (incl. collaborators) and a contribution to infrastructure costs. These funds help the establishment of an independent team to implement a research project. A proposal for assistant professorship without tenure track for the hereby funded scientists may be handed in to the ETH Board, provided that certain requirements are met.
Formally, they are thus equal to assistant professors financed by ETH budget funds. The duration of the subsidy for SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowships as well as for ERC Starting Grants is set to five years.
Due to Switzerland’s status as a non-associated third country in Horizon Europe, the SNSF is launching the SNSF Starting Grants 2023 call on the government’s behalf to support researchers (based in Switzerland or abroad) who planned to apply for an ERC Starting Grant. Successful applicants will be able to conduct research in Switzerland and to establish their scientific independence.
Please be aware that the SNSF Starting Grants 2023 is an integrative call. This means that there will be no SNSF PRIMA or SNSF Eccellenza calls as these schemes are now included in the SNSF Starting Grants call.
The submission deadline is 01.02.2023.
Further information can be found external pageherecall_made. Information on the ETH-internal application procedure as well as support with the application is provided by EU GrantsAccess ().
More information: