"life" is keeping Horizon 2020 in sight
Since February, ETH Zurich’s researchers and students have been partially excluded from Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020. “life – ETH community magazine” gives an overview of the situation.
Since Switzerland voted to curb immigration in February, it has been classed as a third country rather than an associated country in relation to Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020. Moreover, talks with the EU on what will happen next to the links between Swiss research and Europe are currently suspended.
“The priority is to ensure that, if possible, Switzerland reestablishes its association as soon as possible and that our researchers are included in the European Research Council’s evaluations,” says ETH President Ralph Eichler.
Until then, he welcomes the interim solutions and the temporary backup measures proposed by the Federal Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation, because his “main concern is the unclear situation for students and researchers”.
Research in international teams
In order to expound the importance of the international programmes and the university’s need for foreign students and highly qualified researchers, the Executive Board and other ETH members are keeping close contact with federal authorities, Parliament and the “FUTURE Network” team of politicians as well. They speak up for the scientific community in Parliament. life is introducing the coordinator of the “FUTURE Network”, Petra Studer.
Internationalism and multicultural teams are a reality at ETH Zurich, an example of which is Juliana Sutanto‘s team: The Indonesian assistant professor of management information systems has seven different nationalities in her team at D-MTEC. She believes that this mainly brings advantages, but also presents some challenges. Interviewed by life, she explains why.
Strong women in chemistry
Katherine Elvira (29) and Jessica Schulz (26), two women working in a male-dominated environment, work as a senior scientist and doctoral student respectively in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences (D-CHAB) at ETH Zurich. With their newly founded women’s association, “Society for Women in Natural Sciences (WiNS)”, they want to help their colleagues to network and show them that there are women at the top.
“I enjoy helping people”, says Maryvonne Landolt. Starting this summer, she will be doing just that at ETH. Effective 1 August, ETH President Ralph Eichler has appointed the long-serving member of a staff unit to be an ombudsperson at ETH Zurich until 2018. Ombudspersons impartially support any member of ETH who is involved in a conflict, crisis or emergency situation.
"life" will inform the ETH community about how their university is developing, introduce them to the people behind the strategies and their working worlds, and guide them through the wide range of experiences campus life has to offer.
