ETH Board: Data sciences initiative launched

At its meeting the ETH Board of 20/21 March 2015 also discussed research infrastructure projects of national significance and further refined its succession planning for the EPFL presidency.  The position will be advertised publicly in early June. The intention is to appoint a successor with effect from 1 January 2017. Christian Zurbrügg was appointed as a new member of the Eawag Directorate.

The ETH Board has taken a decision in principle on the establishment of a national Data Science Center. The ETH Domain wants to assume responsibility for the construction of a Data Science Center for the scientific exploitation and secure management of vast data volumes ("big data"). Switzerland increasingly lacks the capacity, expertise and qualified staff to be able to evaluate and utilise the rapidly growing data volumes in science and research. The plan is to establish the Data Science Center within EPFL and ETH Zurich. It will consist of an interdisciplinary team of data and computer scientists, and will be available to the whole research community in Switzerland.

Part of the ETH Board's initiative also involves creating related courses in data sciences at EPFL and ETH Zurich. The specific details and implementation of this initiative will be primarily determined by the ETH Domain's budget, which will be set next year by the Federal Council and Parliament for the 2017–2020 period.

There is a need for harmonisation in the Swiss grants system. The ETH Board therefore supports the current harmonisation efforts by the Confederation and the cantons. At the same time, it sympathises with the concerns of the grants initiative brought by the Swiss students' union (VSS). In view of the expected additional costs of the initiative to the detriment of the education and research budget, however, the ETH Board believes that the disadvantages of the initiative prevail.