Virtual town hall meeting: solidarity in emergency mode

Until further notice, ETH members may only be present on ETH Zurich’s premises in a few exceptional cases where their physical presence is absolutely necessary. Everyone else has been ordered to work from home. The ETH Executive Board invited all ETH members to a virtual town hall meeting held on 18 March in order to stay connected with the ETH community and address their questions and concerns.

As expected, participation in the meeting was high: between 2,500 and 3,000 ETH members took part in the 90-minute meeting, which was held in webinar format. The implications of the switch to emergency operations are enormous: it is not just about staff working from home, but also about researchers ramping down experiments and research facilities and students changing over to online-only learning. In short, shifting to emergency operations is an enormous feat. “We are reducing all activities that require being physically present at ETH to an absolute minimum. All ETH members essentially have to stay at home. This is ETH’s contribution to containing the epidemic,” explained ETH President Joël Mesot. The changeover to emergency mode was also described as an act of solidarity to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system.

A helping hand from the crisis unit

A crisis unit led by Ulrich Weidmann, Vice President for Infrastructure and Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership a.i., has been preparing for and supporting the shift to emergency operations for the past several weeks and will actively continue doing so until shortly after the containment of the epidemic. The task force has already taken many decisions and drafted numerous regulations that serve as the basis for the emergency mode that will be in place over the next few months. These decisions and rules can be found on ETH’s coronavirus website. “The chaos phase is now behind us,” stated Ulrich Weidmann. However, he cautioned that realistically, this exceptional situation may remain in place until at least the end of May. Now that emergency operations have been declared, the crisis unit and its 14 crisis teams will dedicate themselves to managing the situation in more detail.

Teaching, research, childcare and more

ETH members’ questions primarily concerned research and teaching, but questions about remote working and childcare were also a topic. Sarah Springman, Rector of ETH Zurich, was encouraged by the almost seamless transition to online teaching. “It should not and will not be the case that students cannot finish the semester because of the coronavirus,” she stated. Assessments of student performance should be adapted to the situation in a pragmatic way, and there are now also clear instructions for how to handle lab work, internships and experimental work. Springman expressed her gratitude for the incredible efforts of the ETH community, which made all of this possible in such a short period of time.

Vice President for Research Detlef Günther, who is currently also Vice President for Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations a.i., addressed researchers during the meeting, stating, “We will have to limit ourselves.” Research operations will also have to be ramped down, with experimental research being reduced to a minimum. Researchers with critical experiments can request exceptional status by submitting an application to their department head by 23 March. The applications will be reviewed by the Office of the Vice President for Research. This also applies to doctoral students.

Regarding home office and childcare arrangements, Ulrich Weidmann emphasised that there is not yet a longer-term regulation in place but that ETH will soon recognise time spent on childcare as working hours. He also stated that ETH is working on ways of helping employees deal with the psychological strain that will come with several months of remote working and not being able to continue research activities.

Robert Perich, Vice President of Finance and Controlling, addressed several issues, including the ongoing reduction of shopping and dining options. He stated that it is important to maintain a small core of dining operations, particularly for the 900 students living on the Hönggerberg campus. Continuing to pay suppliers should not pose an issue either, thanks to the excellently developed digital processes in place at ETH. “Thanks to ETHIS, we will continue being able to process and make on-time payments for open invoices for services provided by external companies,” Perich said. “This is us doing our part to help our suppliers not get into any liquidity troubles. ETH will live up to its economic responsibilities.”

Solidarity in action

At the town hall meeting, ETH members showed great willingness to stand behind the Executive Board and the community in this difficult situation. The questions asked were consistently fact-based and helped clarify open issues. Many people asked how they could lend concrete support to ETH or other institutions, be it with equipment or expertise. Vice President Detlef Günther explained that they are already in touch with many parties and are compiling an overview of equipment, expertise and other resources that could be made available. ETH has already made rooms and equipment available to the University Hospital Zurich for coronavirus testing. Medical students took the initiative of organising themselves and are being transferred to hospitals for support – particularly to other cantons that do not have their own medical students to rely on. Additionally, ETH will be providing special support to coronavirus research with short- and medium-term impact.

ETH President Joël Mesot expressed his gratitude to the ETH community for their tremendous efforts. Even though many questions remain open, Mesot offered his reassurance: “We have heard your concerns. Rest assured – we will find solutions.”