By Norbert Staub

Six months after the award of the Nobel Prize to ETH professor Kurt Wüthrich the euphoria has subsided and everyday routine has ETH in its grip once again. The press conference was a timely opportunity for the Executive Board to grant the media a view behind the scenes of teaching and research. ETH President Olaf Kübler reminds those present of the day-to-day attention that must be paid to detail and hard work, without which no breakthrough in Nobel-Prize-worthy research is possible.

Shaping the future on a high level, that is the core business of ETH. In order to carry out this business effectively and efficiently, investment is vital. The issue of the future federal financing of education, research and technology is currently under debate in the National Parliament, and Kübler stresses that there can be no doubt that a further reduction of the planned annual budget increase of 4 per cent "cannot remain without consequences". The Executive Board's decision to abrogate 13 professorships, as well as to introduce savings amounting to two further chairs has been taken.

A year to plot the course

As far as research infrastructure is concerned, planning must be based on long-term decisions and on dependable framework conditions. As an example, Kübler cites the "Functional Genomics Center Zurich" and the micro and nanolaboratory "FIRST Lab". These two highly complex research centres were inaugurated last year and are now fully operational. The laboratory "Zurich Radiogenic Isotope Geochemistry Lab" opened in March 2002, represents a further such highlight for which an investment of nine million Swiss francs was necessary.

Renovation of teaching, strengthening innovation: ETH Rector Konrad Osterwalder and Ulrich W. Suter, Vice-president Research and Business Relations large

Less spectacular, but equally important, is the permanent investment in human capital. As regards newly appointed professors, we see a "clear internationalisation", Kübler reports, although 37 per cent of professors hold Swiss passports. Regardless of citizenship or country of origin, the United States is becoming the key country for the appointment of new ETH professors. This is seen as a clear reflection of the US tradition of the "quest for experience and maturity" of the research élite. Germany, as a country of recruitment, has become less important.

Information sciences, life sciences, the shaping of town and landscape and environment and natural resources are the core areas that ETH will focus on in the coming years. This focus must be embedded within a science culture that is fully aware of its responsibilities. Its guiding principles are "joy of discovery and curiosity, rationality, objectivity, honesty and responsibility vis-à-vis society", says President Kübler.

More a revolution than a reform

ETH is also ensuring its future survival by changing its study structure to accord with the Bologna model, a reform which is well underway in most European countries. Rector Konrad Osterwalder, whom Kübler introduces as "our revolutionary", outlines the radical restructuring of courses to meet the requirements of a bachelor/master system (1). By coming autumn, according to Osterwalder, most ETH departments will be riding the "Bologna train". Not only does the new modular structure of courses enable students to change the direction of their studies, but - above all - to change universities. "Our greatest hope," says Osterwalder, "is that our students will take advantage of this possibility".

For a high scientific culture and for space for it to unfold: ETH President Olaf Kübler and Gerhard Schmitt, Vice-president Planning and Logistics (front right) large

Research has long been a global enterprise and the coming reform globalises teaching in an unprecedented manner. This means that in future a part of certain courses have to be taken in non-German speaking countries or regions or a master degree programme taught entirely in English. In the same vein the programme "Erasmus World" has become reality offering a masters course, which is co-ordinated with other universities. For example, for a masters in geology, part of the courses can be taken in Zurich and part at the TU Delft. Within the IDEA-League-Network, special stipends are foreseen in order to help students make a smooth transfer from one university to another.

"Science City": Getting sponsors on board

Exactly how ETH is preparing itself for the demands of tomorrow was illustrated by Gerhard Schmitt, ETH Vice-president Planning and Logistics. At the centre of this endeavour, the development of the University of Zurich, the University Hospital and ETH will be more closely co-ordinated in co-operation with the City and Canton of Zurich.

The City will shortly be presenting its plans for the development of guiding principles for the universities area ("Entwicklungsleitbild Hochschulgebiet"), which include concepts for transport and leisure facilities. ETH's planned withdrawal from 10'000 square metres of living space in the city centre represents part of this plan (2).

With the completion of the "five fingers" and the third expansion phase, the Hönggerberg campus, after 2007 place of work for 10,000 students and staff, is destined to become a veritable "Science City". It will encompass e-science buildings and, in the long-term, a new underground centre for imaging technologies. In the mid-term, campus housing for students, an e-learning and congress centre, as well as sports facilities and restaurants will be added. Latter projects will only be realised, however, on the condition that private sponsors be found for the necessary investment of ca. 150 million Swiss francs, as Schmitt explains.

“Marriage bureau” for new developments

The strained economic situation has lent new impetus to the current discussion on Switzerland's innovation capacity. The latter is in a bad way compared to earlier times, is the often-heard criticism. Ulrich W. Suter, Vice-president Research and Business Relations, expounds on the ways ETH supports the urgently needed transfer of scientific results to marketable innovations. As, for example, with two new transfer centres for product development, founded last week (3). The focus of these centres is on small and medium-size businesses (KMUs) traditionally birthplaces of Swiss innovation that, owing to limited capacity, often have problems initiating innovation by themselves. Suter hopes that the business chambers will foster the creation of "marriage institutes" and help to develop co-operation between KMUs and universities.

The Vice-president Research considers a privatisation of transfer activities, as recently proposed by the think tank "Avenir Suisse" (4), to be a "weak idea". This is because it is the intellectual property rights of the universities that are at stake, which the latter should not allow to be taken away. Impulse for business arising from research can only be realised on a fair basis of exchange. This includes public support of research and that policies regulating research are binding and transparent. Suter concludes, "nothing comes from nothing".