Broad-based commitment to ETH Zurich
The ETH Foundation received donations and bequests to the value of CHF 130.1 million from the generosity of private persons, foundations and the business community.
The newly published Annual Report contains further details on the origin and application of these funds. “Federal contributions to ETH Zurich cover our basic financing needs”, explains Dr Donald Tillman, Managing Director of the ETH Foundation. “In addition to that, donations allow us to finance strategic initiatives, accelerate the creation of new professorships and enable special development programmes. I am delighted to say that the commitment shown by our donors has again allowed us to advance a number of pioneering new projects this year.”
Milestones in the Rehab and ETH mobility initiatives
Highlights in 2018 include the support provided by the Wilhelm Schulthess Foundation to the Rehab initiative through the “Data Science for Personalized Health” professorship, which is dedicated to identifying new methods of evaluating medical data to improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
Moreover, five projects have been successfully launched under the external page ETH Mobility Initiative, initiated in January 2018 with the SBB as its first funding partner. A second major partner, Siemens Mobility, came on board in January 2019, which will enable the initiation of further projects in the near future.
Donor funds were also behind the 57 external page Excellence Scholarships and ten external page Pioneer Fellowships awarded to ambitious Master’s students and budding young entrepreneurs in 2018.
Broad-based support
Donors, comprising private persons (including a large contingent of ETH Zurich employees and alumni), foundations and businesses made a total of 2,133 contributions to the ETH Foundation in 2018. Most of the donors contribute during their lifetime, although there are also those who remember ETH in their will. Contributions in 2018 totalled in excess of CHF 130.1 million.
“Donors give to ETH Zurich because they want to put something back into the university or society, or because they want to speed up the search for solutions to global challenges”, says Dr Donald Tillman. “Their commitment is vital to ETH Zurich and to Switzerland as a centre of education and research.”
The ETH Foundation
The support of private persons, foundations and the business community enables research and teaching that would simply not exist otherwise: the external page ETH Foundation works with you to develop the best talents and establish Switzerland as a knowledge centre to build pioneering solutions to global challenges.
See the ETH Foundation 2018 external page Annual Report for further details on supported initiatives and programmes.