With some 600 professors, 16,000 staff (13,000 full-time equivalents) and 20,000 undergraduate and post-graduate students, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne and the four application-oriented research institutes – the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), the Materials Science and Technology Research Institution (EMPA) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) – produce scientific achievements of the highest calibre. Together they constitute the ETH Domain under the strategic leadership of the ETH Board as the supervisory body (ETH Act, Article 4). Appointed by the Swiss Federal Council, the ETH Board allocates funds to the six institutions within the guidelines set by the government, and administers their real-estate holdings on a fiduciary basis.

New ETH Board strengthens cooperation in the ETH Domain

Right from its very first meeting, the newly elected ETH Board, which took office at the beginning of the current four-year performance period (2008–2011), has attached great importance to mutual trust and focused cooperation. Its new rules of procedure not only clarify its own activities, they also strengthen governance and, above all, cooperation in the ETH Domain. It has also set priorities for its work. The ETH Board will propose new focus areas in the growth strategies of EPFL and ETH Zurich, knowledge and technology transfer, and cooperation within the Swiss university landscape – particularly with regard to the universities of applied sciences. Close collaboration with the institutions is a particular concern of the ETH Board. This is why it deliberately invests so much time in the annual “Dialogues”, which are generally hosted by the institutions. In close cooperation with the institutions, the ETH Board has also returned to the question of allocating funds on the basis of performance. As the ETH Domain’s employer, the ETH Board is committed to dialogue between management and staff representatives. One duty that the ETH Board takes especially seriously is the selection of the right people to appoint as professors. It pays particular attention to their management functions because on them depends not only the quality of the institutions, but also the level of research that will be conducted by future generations.