July 2021

Since 1 April 2021, the ETH platform for workshop technology (in short Workshop Platform) has expanded its range of services to include design and development. This service is offered free of charge to ETH members.

swissuniversities, together with ERI partner organisations, has developed the Swiss National Open Research Data Strategy. Following the adoption, an action plan is now on the agenda.

The rETHink project was launched by President Joël Mesot in 2020. More than 600 ETH members have participated in various capacities in the six workstreams so far. One of them is Andre Kahles, Senior Scientist in the Biomedical Informatics Group (BMI) in the Department of Computer Science.

Members of ETH Zurich now have free access to the online version of the leading American daily newspaper The New York Times.

Scientifica 2021 will take place on the weekend of 4 and 5 September. The range of this year's science festival by ETH and the University of Zurich is larger than ever before. This brings some challenges for the organisational team. Helping hands from the ETH community are still needed.

Over the past few months, ETH Zurich has been improving the historical area around the ETH observatory to make it a more attractive place to socialise and find peace and quiet. Other projects, such as the current redevelopment of the main building forecourt, will improve the overall quality of the exterior spaces in the university district.

In order to improve the IT-security measures at ETH, plans are underway to implement new services for helping to detect risks in IT-systems. This helps to protect IT-systems and data from abuse.

Scientific integrity is a key value in credible and excellent teaching and research and a prerequisite for trust in science. What integrity means for researchers at ETH and for their daily work will now be a topic for discussion until October.

What had been feared since the breakdown of the EU-​Swiss bilateral agreement negotiations has now come to pass. Yesterday, the European Commission notified the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) that Switzerland will be treated as a non-​associated third country for the submission of project proposals in Horizon Europe and other related programmes and initiatives. Although this status can be changed at any time, it will now apply for all calls in 2021.

ETH employees are being asked to reduce high levels of accrued time off (holidays, over-hours, overtime and loyalty bonus holiday credits). Lukas Vonesch, Head of Human Resources at ETH Zurich, explains what’s behind this move.