ETH Zurich celebrated its anniversary on 16 November with guests from politics, science, industry and the arts. In a speech commemorating the 200th birthday this year of ETH’s founder, Alfred Escher, the guest speaker Guy Parmelin, a member of the Federal Council, looked back at the pioneering beginnings of the university, as well as describing how its early teaching and research helped to drive forward Switzerland’s industrialisation. Today, ETH continues to play a pivotal role in addressing urgent social challenges. “I’m thinking here of climate change, energy supply, mobility and especially digitisation, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity,” said the Minister for Economic Affairs, Education and Research.
Shaping social development
Joël Mesot has been ETH President since 1 January 2019. He confirmed that the past months had been fairly intense, but also said he was impressed by the energy and dynamism that characterises ETH. President Mesot described some recent successes in teaching and research, and detailed some highlights in the transfer of knowledge and technology. He also stressed that it was important to focus not only on technological, but also social change. ETH is becoming more diverse and the understanding of hierarchy is changing too.
“As a university we are part of a process – equally affecting the social dimension – that questions the status quo and makes demands,” Mesot said. The Executive Board has responded to these increased demands by launching the reETHink project. Its goal is to sharpen processes and responsibilities, strengthen individual responsibility and leadership skills, and foster ETH’s development as a community based on shared values.
Big changes on all study levels
Over the past year there have also been major changes in the area of teaching, to ensure ETH’s ability to pursue its mission to produce “future-ready graduates”. “If I look back on the past year, I can see it has been a very intense and exceptionally productive period,” said Rector Sarah Springman, master of ceremonies for the ETH Day. In her opening remarks she outlined the doctorate programme, which has had a major revamp in 2019. All doctoral students, for example, will in future be assigned two supervisors even before the end of their first year. Around this time they will also be expected to submit a research plan, as well as present and support their research concept at a colloquium.
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