News from the Executive Board 2021/2
The ETH Zurich Executive Board has decided to continue running the Energy Science Center and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from business trips. Additionally, the full scope of Zoom functionality is now available to everyone in the ETH community.
Flying consciously
A partially revised version of the regulations on business expenses entered into force on 1 May 2021, with special emphasis on sustainability measures. The revisions focus on supporting ETH Zurich’s stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from business-related flights.
Here are the most important changes:
- More emphasis on virtual meetings: Business trips should be reduced to the absolute minimum. Wherever possible, virtual forms of exchange should be prioritised instead.
- Environmental footprint is key: When choosing how to travel, the lowest price is no longer the only deciding factor, but also the environmental footprint. Bus and train trips should therefore be substituted for flights whenever possible.
- Avoiding domestic flights: To reinforce the aforementioned point, domestic flights will generally no longer be approved. Connecting flights are exempt from this rule. Additionally, there will continue to be no reimbursements for business flights within Europe or for flights only to and from a person's home.
- Train and bus travel instead of flights: Flights should no longer be taken to business destinations that can be reached within eight hours by train or bus. In the future it will therefore be possible to charge an additional overnight stay when someone has to travel on the previous day or the following day and to charge additional costs for night trains.
- GA/half fare travel cards: As the SBB has changed its regulations, it is now only possible to change to a half fare card once your GA travel card has expired. Switching from a half fare travel card to a GA travel card is possible at any time, however.
ETH Zurich's emission reduction goals and the attendant changes in the regulations are compatible with scientific excellence and optimal career opportunities for researchers.
Members of the ETH community are invited to use external pageRouterank to help them make sustainable, low-emission travel choices. This online tool evaluates and sorts different transport and travel options to a particular destination based on time, cost and CO2 emissions.
On the following pages you can find more information on:
Energy Science Center will continue operations
Energy research is traditionally one of ETH Zurich's strategic action areas. ETH’s Energy Science Center (ESC) has been Switzerland's leading centre of excellence for energy science since 2005. A total of 55 professors from nine departments are part of the ESC, which is active in teaching, research and outreach work.
The ESC coordinates the Master in Energy Science and Technology (MEST), an interdisciplinary degree programme that admits around 60 new students each year. The centre also recently established two broad-based research platforms – ReMaP (Renewable Management and Real-time Control Platform) and Nexus-e (Integrated Energy Systems Modelling Platform) – that serve as exemplary models of scientific exchange with stakeholders from business, the public sector and civil society.
Considering the vital contributions that the ESC can make to Switzerland's Energy Strategy 2050, the Executive Board has approved a four-year extension of the centre until 2025.
Unlimited use of Zoom at ETH
The entire ETH community can now use professional licences for Zoom that offer full functionality. This includes add-on options for meetings with more than 300 participants and webinars, which previously had to be paid for separately, and increased storage space that allows ETH to save recordings of lectures in Zoom for up to two years.
Until now, there were nearly 10,000 pro licences for staff and lecturers, while students had to use free licences with limited functionality. Zoom was also only approved for use on a temporary basis due to data protection concerns.
Because the corona crisis has turned Zoom into an indispensable tool for online teaching and virtual meetings at ETH Zurich, IT Services worked together with the SWITCH foundation to conclude a new framework agreement with the company. This agreement allows the unlimited use of Zoom for all members of the ETH community (students, researchers, staff) and incorporates data protection recommendations for data processing and storage (for details, please refer to this internal news article).
New continuing education programme in digital health
Digital health interventions are becoming increasingly important. The MTEC department has responded to this development with a new Digital Health CAS programme, which will begin in the autumn of 2022. The programme, which is mainly targeted at doctors as well as managers working in the healthcare sector, will take place 80 to 90 percent online, in keeping with coronavirus regulations. The CAS in Digital Health is designed to be a standalone programme but will also be included as a module in the MAS in Digital Clinical Research, which is organised by D-HEST and also scheduled to kick off in the autumn of 2022.
New continuing education programme in international governance and law
Since 2017, the School for Continuing Education has offered two successful continuing education programmes in the field of public administration: the CAS ETH in International Policy and Advocacy and the CAS in Public Governance and Administration, led by Michael Ambühl (Swiss School of Public Governance). These two programmes are complemented by the CAS in EU law, offered by the University of Zurich’s Europa Institut. A new programme, the MAS ETH UZH in International Governance and Law, rounds out these course offerings further and is primarily aimed at people working in public administration in an international capacity.
Personnel updates
Special election for the Commission for Good Scientific Practice
Since 1 April 2018, the Commission for Good Scientific Practice (GSP Commission) has supported the Executive Board on issues surrounding good scientific practice. The commission promotes and supports internal discussions on GSP issues in order to answer questions, create transparency on problematic matters, establish standards and raise awareness among researchers. The commission is currently revising the guidelines for scientific integrity in research and good scientific practice (RSETHZ 414). The Executive Board will initiate an internal consultation process on this matter in the near future.
The Executive Board elected the following professors to serve on the commission as of 1 April:
- Eleni Chatzi (D-BAUG)
- Manfred Fiebig (D-MATL)
- Gabriela Hug (D-ITET).
Their term of office lasts until 31 March 2025. These new members will replace the three previous members Paolo Burlando (D-BAUG), Laura Heyderman (D-MATL) and Klaas Enno Stephan (D-ITET), who have decided to leave office before their term is up.
New AVETH representatives elected to the Strategy Commission
Zoe Jonassen, a doctoral student in D-MTEC, represented the Academic Association of Scientific Staff at ETH Zurich (AVETH) on the Strategy Commission until the end of March. She was succeeded by Daniel Kwasnitschka, who is also a D-MTEC doctoral student.