Results of the 2022 survey of scientific staff

• The satisfaction of the ETH members canvassed with the support they receive also lies at a high level across almost all three groups of scientific staff and points of time. The only exception here is senior assistants after 48 months, although there are only few responses for this:
  

• Mutual treatment within the research group is found to be fair and respectful.
• The employment conditions are also considered fair, although doctoral students are more critical of the salary rates, and postdoctoral researchers and senior assistants are altogether considerably more satisfied with the employment conditions:

• The survey participants altogether consider their mental health to be good. However, the issue is viewed somewhat more critically by various groups surveyed, such as senior assistants and women survey participants (see below). Mental health is therefore an issue that needs to be improved on an ongoing basis: 

Results by group surveyed and gender

Interesting differences emerge when comparing the results of the three groups of scientific staff surveyed:

• Doctoral students are altogether more satisfied than in the 2021 employee survey and more familiar with the contact and advice services. While they are generally critical of the benefits of the research plan, they have a positive view of the onboarding events. Depending on their department, they are less satisfied with salaries and rate their mental health more critically.
• Postdoctoral researchers display a high level of satisfaction, albeit slightly lower than the results of the 2021 employee survey. They are particularly satisfied with the employment conditions. They view the handling of pressure critically and satisfaction with support is down compared with the employee survey.
• Senior assistants are satisfied with leadership support, conflict management and employment conditions. Their overall satisfaction is significantly lower in the survey conducted after 48 months. This particularly concerns satisfaction with their scientific career path, leadership support, respectful treatment and mental health. Altogether this is the stage with the most critical assessments, which can be explained by the major uncertainty concerning their career prospects.
• Women survey participants rate most aspects, such as health, the employment conditions and overall satisfaction, slightly lower than their male colleagues. Women also view conflict management, coping with pressure and mental health slightly more critically.

The results of the survey are comparable between the departments. Differences emerge above all on the issue of employment conditions. One reason for this may be the varying practices regarding salary rates.

Improvement potential and measures

As well as these generally positive results, there are also areas that are viewed critically by the groups of scientific staff surveyed. Here is where there is improvement potential:

Remuneration: Doctoral students, particularly in departments with lower salary rates, are generally critical on the issue of remuneration. In order to discuss this further and define possible measures, a working group led by Julia Dannath, Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership, has already been addressing questions concerning doctoral students’ salaries since the start of this year (see Internal news, 19 December 2022).

Support: The support of scientific staff is to be further improved, for example, by means of closer monitoring and raising the awareness of supervisors and doctoral students in critical situations, particularly in cases of doctoral studies being abandoned or doctoral supervisors resigning (see Directives for Doctoral Students Employed at ETH Zurich), performance problems in doctoral studies or long-term absence due to illness. A guideline (in German only) for supervisors and doctoral students contains information about employment issues, in particular concerning the employment contract, holiday entitlement, the procedure in case of illness and rights and obligations pertaining to doctoral studies. There are also further support services for supervisors, postdoctoral researchers and senior assistants on the issues of career and development.

Outlook

The Executive Board acknowledged the results of the survey of scientific staff and the fields of action arising from them in early May 2023 and has decided to continue the survey this year. Information about the results of the 2023 survey will accordingly be provided next year.