communications update 08/20

The Barrier-Free at ETH Zurich project is on the cusp of a pioneering decision. At the start of September, the Executive Board will decide on the implementation of the proposed measures and on ETH Zurich¡¯s future approach to the topic of accessibility.

During the project management team¡¯s fifth and final meeting in mid-August, the entire course of the project to assess the current situation and its results were fully endorsed: the final report, the ten-year master plan and a corresponding proposal to the Executive Board were approved by the Vice President for Infrastructure, Professor Ulrich Weidmann, and all the organisational units involved. The ongoing project will thus be completed by the end of August.

At the Executive Board meeting at the start of September, ETH Zurich¡¯s upper management will now decide on whether to implement the 15 packages of measures in the three discrete fields ¡°Construction: buildings and their use¡±, ¡°Technology: IT, communications, teaching materials and library media¡±, and ¡°Institutional approach¡±. In addition to structural and technological alterations, ETH Zurich¡¯s own cultural understanding of itself as a university open to everyone plays a decisive role in implementing accessibility (on this topic, see also the Culture development workstream as part of the rETHink reorganisation project).

Another communications update will provide information on the decision reached here.