The Executive Board reports 2019 / 6

Since 2004, the proportion of female students has been constant at around 30 percent; in 2018, it rose to 32 percent for the first time. According to the latest issue of the Gender Monitoring Report by Equal!, the ETH Office of Equal Opportunities and Diversity, the proportion of women holding a full professorship rose from 12.1 percent in 2017 to 13.3 percent in 2018. However, the proportion of female assistant professors fell slightly to 21.9 percent. The proportion of women among all professors amounted to almost 15 percent. This year, the focus section of the Gender Monitoring Report is dedicated to the role of women and men in ETH spin-offs. Over the past 28 years, the proportion of female founders has on average been just under 8 percent. Even in the last ten years, this proportion has hardly exceeded the 10 percent mark. The reasons for this include the fact that women perceive a low level of knowledge in business management as more of a deterrent than is the case with men. In addition, the proportion of women in research teams is already low, and this is reflected in the founding teams.

Old Master’s programmes with a fresh face

The Master’s programmes in civil engineering, computer science and biomedical engineering are being modernised and adjusted to meet today’s needs. Budding civil engineers will be expected to write just one project paper in future, but project-based courses will be complemented by a new digital category, which will serve to expand students’ knowledge of digital technologies and how computational science can aid civil engineering.  

The Master’s programme in computer science will be increased from 90 to 120 points. To eliminate the discrepancy between effort and the number of credits, many course units will award more credits in future. This way, the course will not take too much longer to complete. This will also allow the overall course to be better structured and individual course units to be more effectively aligned. In addition to majors introducing particular areas of computer science, the programme will also feature minors that either cover a different area of computer science or are interdisciplinary. There will also be a bigger role for practical work on specific computer science issues. The Master’s programme in biomedical engineering – a collaboration between the ITET, HEST, MACT and PHYS departments – will also be increased from 90 to 120 points. The new curriculum sets out to encourage team working and provide more opportunities for practical work.

Re-election of the President’s delegates

The Executive Board has re-elected the President’s delegates. Reto Knutti, Lothar Thiele and Gisbert Schneider will continue until the end of 2020 in their posts of Associate Vice President for Sustainability, for Digital Transformation and for ETH Global, respectively. Renate Schubert, the Associate Vice President for Equal Opportunities was re-elected until the end of July 2020.

Are you satisfied with ETH?

In spring 2020, all employees of ETH Zurich are requested to share their subjective impression of their work situation via an electronic questionnaire. Every four years since 2004 (and most recently in 2016), a comprehensive survey has been undertaken of all professors and all scientific, technical and administrative staff relating to their satisfaction, commitment, job content, management, working environment, health and other aspects of their working lives. This, the fifth ETH-wide survey, will be conducted in March and April and evaluated by August. The Executive Board will then decide in November 2020 on measures derived from the survey.

External advice service: bullying, harassment and discrimination

ETH Zurich recently decided to offer its members not only the internal advice and conciliation service respect to deal with the topics of bullying, harassment and discrimination, but now also an independent, external advice service. The relevant contract was concluded with the company “Fachstelle Mobbing und Belästigung”, which has a great deal of experience in the public sector and other academic institutions. The external advice service receives queries and conducts consultations to discuss and plan any steps that need to be taken. It provides no details of consultations to internal units and is bound by anonymity and confidentiality. The external advice service does not seek any clarifications of its own within ETH; if the problems cannot be resolved in a face-to-face discussion, the external specialists make referrals to the internal units.

Electrified ETH Link

From around the autumn semester of 2020, an electric bus will connect the Hönggerberg campus with the Zentrum campus. The ETH Link service has been in operation since 2009, making the trip at 20-minute intervals or, during semesters, at 10- or 20-minute intervals. Each year, the service carries around a million passengers. For the years 2020 to 2026, the service was put out to tender in line with WTO guidelines. Three service providers offered a total of eight variants with diesel, hybrid, gas, biogas and electric buses. The contract was awarded to the company Eurobus welti furrer AG, which will operate an electric bus. What is known as a pantograph has been installed on the Hönggerberg campus for fast charging of the bus.

New real estate strategy

ETH Zurich’s constant growth calls for a well-thought-out, focused approach to the use of space – a resource in short supply. Real estate management must find the middle ground between federal and ETH Board regulations on the one hand and the infrastructure requirements of teaching and research on the other. Against this backdrop, the Executive Board has now approved the Real Estate Management department’s new real estate strategy, which replaces the outdated strategy of 2007. The overarching aim is to provide all ETH members with an inspiring environment for teaching, research and transfer. The strategy sets out ETH Zurich’s long-term real estate goals in the form of ten principles and goes on to define the relevant action areas and measures for each. In short,

• if we provide excellent infrastructure for work, we will attract highly qualified employees and talented students.
• The allocation of that infrastructure across the various sites promotes interdepartmental and interdisciplinary exchange.
  
• New infrastructure is prioritised according to the focal points of academic strategy and development planning.
  
• Space is to be allocated in line with uniform criteria and in a way that ensures a high degree of capacity utilisation.
  
• The aim is always to conserve natural resources and reduce environmental impact.

From autumn 2019, six sub-strategies will be derived from the ten strategic principles. These will consider the development potential at different sites, define the various options for infrastructure provision (build, buy, sell, swap, lease) and outline the criteria for prioritising construction projects. Depending on the topic, departments and central administrative units will be involved as appropriate in working up these sub-strategies.

A higher voltage for Hönggerberg

The multiannual project to reconfigure electricity supply to the Hönggerberg campus from a voltage of 11 kV to 22 kV has been formally concluded. In the space of 45 days in autumn 2018, in collaboration with the local power company EKZ, all the buildings on the ETH campus were successively disconnected from the grid for 30 minutes and converted to the new voltage. This project improves security of supply, as each building is now supplied from two sides. The project came in under its budget of 21 million Swiss francs. With the Federal Assembly having approved the construction project in its 2013 winter session, implementation – including the optimisation or replacement of all transformers and the removal of asbestos – took place from 2014 to 2018.

D-INFK: An institute gets a new name

The Computer Science department’s Institute for Pervasive Computing has been renamed. As of 1 October 2019, it is known as the Institute for Intelligent Interactive Systems. Professors at the institute are Stelian Coros, Otmar Hilliges, Christian Holz and Friedemann Mattern.

New cleaning service in Zentrum

From next year, cleaning services in the ETH buildings on the Zentrum campus will be provided by a new external supplier: the company Honegger has won the WTO-compliant tender to clean the Zentrum buildings for the next five years.