The Executive Board reports 2018 / 3
The last meetings of the Executive Board were devoted mainly to numerous construction and infrastructure projects. Decisions were taken, inter alia, on the construction of the new physics building on the Hönggerberg and the future occupancy of the Main Building. The offices of the Vice President for Human Resources and Infrastructure will move into a leased building in Oerlikon.
Small corrections have been made to the programme regulations for the ETH Bachelor in Human Medicine, which was launched last year. In particular, the sequence of subjects has been optimised and new examinations have been added in the second year at the students’ request. The Executive Board has also approved the regulations for the DAS ETH in Data Science continuing education programme, which is offered jointly by the departments D-INFK, D-ITET and D-MATH.
New site for the VPPR offices in Oerlikon
Large parts of the workspace allocated to Ulrich Weidmann, Vice President for Human Resources and Infrastructure, will be relocated to Oerlikon. With the rental of the office building Octavo at Binzmühlestrasse 130 in Oerlikon, the relatively expensive and inflexible location at Kreuzplatz will be vacated and additional lease space will be freed up for academic use.
“The move to the easily accessible location in Oerlikon will give my department the opportunity to develop new forms of collaborative communication in bright and open offices.” Ulrich Weidmann
The lease of Octavo will cut annual rental costs by almost 10 percent per year. It is planned to rent about 8,000 m2, where the Real Estate Management, IT Services, parts of the Facility Management and Services departments and the management of the VPPR department will be located from mid-2020. The move of further ETH organisational units is being considered, since an additional 3,600 m2 of office space is available for rent in Octavo. Formerly owned by the telecommunications company Sunrise, the building is centrally located, five minutes’ walk from Oerlikon station and has a bus stop directly in front of it.
Optimised occupancy of the ETH Main Building
The occupancy of rooms in the ETH Main Building (HG) is being optimised. There are plans for smaller reshuffles in the HG, which do not require any major structural intervention. This will affect individual staff, offices and departments that already use rooms in the HG and will now be grouped more effectively.
The reshuffle will include the removal of parts of the Services department and D-MAVT, the VPPR management, the establishment of a new visitor centre, preferably in the ETH dome, and the use of room G1 for teaching (rectorate). Classrooms will continue to be located in the courtyards and Services will primarily be on floors E and D. The optimisations, which were developed with the involvement of all school management units and departments (D-MATH and D-MAVT) concerned, will be implemented from 2019 – until then a number of detailed variants will be examined.
Risk assessment report
The Risk Management Commission (RMK) assesses ETH Zurich’s most important risks in an annual report in order to evaluate the current risk situation. This includes overarching risks at school management level and those at departmental and administrative level. ETH risks are divided and weighted into key core risks, other residual risks and less acute “additional risks”. As in previous years, the RMK report was discussed intensively by the Executive Board. According to the RMK, the risk situation of ETH Zurich has not changed substantially.
“Serious risk management is essential for a world-renowned university. However, since we cannot eliminate risks, we must prepare well for all possible scenarios.”Robert Perich
Last year, particular attention was paid to the risk of non-compliance due to new problems relating to management issues and the rule-compliant use of financial resources. “Facilities and infrastructure” has been added as a new area to the catalogue of core risks, since great efforts are needed to meet the space requirements for the “ETH+” strategic development project deadline. By contrast, procurement is no longer on the list of core risks. As a result of the successful implementation of various measures, such as comprehensive training and process optimisations, procurement risks will be included in the “additional risks” category in future.
New signage handbook
In order to simplify orientation inside and outside ETH buildings and to achieve a consistent appearance of ETH in the cityscape, the Executive Board has approved new signage guidelines. The new handbook defines all important aspects of orientation and labelling in the interior and exterior of ETH Zurich buildings. The handbook is divided into two parts: a general part sets out the principles of the new signage, and an implementation part records in detail all physical components of the orientation and information flow, such as information displays, orientation boards and pictograms. The handbook serves as a guideline for the Real Estate Management, and Facility Management and Services departments, ensures consistency and uniformity in the long term, simplifies the procurement of orientation systems, and thus also reduces costs. The upgrade to the new signage system will take place in stages: for ongoing and future renovation and construction projects (such as the new medical building GLC in Gloriarank), for selected properties in a trial run and for the Main Building. The central focus is on signage on ETH Zurich Zentrum campus. The recently installed signage on the Hönggerberg campus will be updated in key areas.
The Executive Board also said yes...
... to the project specifications for the new building for quantum physics (HPQ) on the Hönggerberg. The new construction of the laboratory and office building will integrate three cross-departmental technology platforms (FIRST II, MMC, CLNE) and is scheduled to go into operation in 2028 +++ ... to introducing a new alarm network in ETH buildings for around CHF 2.1 million. The old pagers and company comms have reached end-of-life +++ ... to launching a WTO-compliant tender for new online storage media for the ETH CSCS Supercomputing Centre. Additional storage capacity is needed on hard disks, solid-state disks and servers +++
Regular updates from the Executive Board
The ETH Zurich Executive Board meets every two weeks for its usual session. Brief summaries of the major decisions passed during these meetings can be found in this section. It is published every four to six weeks, with the results from at least two Executive Board sessions covered in each summary.