In the seven months leading up to your taking over the office of president you spoke to lots of people at ETH. How did you experience this period?

Ernst Hafen: I experienced ETH as a very exciting place with lots of people and a huge range of talents. As a biologist my knowledge of engineering disciplines is limited. If one works with fruit flies and then enters the construction hall at ETH where gigantic concrete pillars are being crushed, it's quite impressive. It also fascinates me to see and discover the enormous range of things created at ETH. Just recently Roche bought the ETH-spin-off company Glycart making its founders, Joël Jean-Mairet and Pablo Umaña–not much more than two PhD students–millionaires. It's simply brilliant!

Did you hear any sceptical voices?

Of course, at first everyone wanted to know, "who have we got here then?" Mostly I felt goodwill but I also picked up on some misgiving. For instance, questions such as "What does it mean for ETH Zurich, if the top jobs in Lausanne and Zurich are occupied by biologists?" It was then important to underline that the new ETH Board also comprises an engineer from the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, an architect and a mathematician.

Do you think it important that people from various specialist fields are represented on the Executive Board?

I not only think, that this is important but also that the members of the board have diverse personal profiles. It's this complementarity that makes a team really productive.

ETH Zurich concluded its Jubilee year with a Visions Week. Which of the inputs will play a role in your term of office?

A lot. On the Day of Teaching I was particularly fascinated by just how constructive and frank discussions between students and professors were in the workshops. There was clearly the sense of a new era and central questions were raised. If in ten years' time all knowledge can be saved on an iPod and accessed whenever one needs it, what then remains for us to transmit to students? Is it really the learning contents that we test today?

During the Day of Research it became clear that top research in Switzerland wants to achieve its international position by creating a national network of the best centres. We are in with a good chance and SystemsX, the new systems biology network, is a prime example. On the Equal Opportunities Day the theme of the work-life balance stood at the centre of interest and the proportion of women, which is still relatively low at ETH. We have to find new ways of making a career in research possible for more women.

The Day of Industry served to highlight just how great the interest for ETH is in industry. This relationship must continue to be nurtured, also by proclaiming our success stories, like that of Glycart and saying: "look, this is what you're capable of, be more courageous!" On the Day of the Universities then, it became clear that ETH needs a uniform strategy to present itself on the international stage.

What worried me to a certain extent was the partially low level of interest. I think we should organise more such "Vision" days. We need to establish a culture of joint reflection.

Will what you have just outlined influence future strategy finding measures?

Absolutely, and it will also influence the five goals that I recorded in my inaugural video message to all members of ETH Zurich. Turning these goals into concrete implements is something that we'll be working on together in the coming weeks.

A change at the helm is often combined with other changes. Is ETH about to undergo a period of reorganisation?

There are bound to be changes–not for the sake of change, but to enable ETH Zurich to adapt to new challenges. What are we going to do, for instance, when offers of learning and training are available more or less everywhere, when students can download MIT's best physics lectures on to their laptops? If we want to attract the best students we have to stand up to the competition. Research has always been international, and ETH Zurich is well positioned internationally. Our education, however is not yet up to that standard. Up until now we held the exclusivity of a technical university, at least in the German speaking part of Switzerland. But this will now change and we have to keep up.

Ernst Hafen, who recently took up office at the head of ETH Zurich. (Picture: Monika Estermann) large

The goals that you recorded in you video message were also aims held by the former Executive Board. Where do you weight them differently?

It's true of course that one doesn't have to reinvent the wheel of a university, which is already well placed. But I do think that the new board weights things somewhat differently. One important point is certainly that the teaching ability must be taken into consideration more strongly in the valuation of professors. One should not only be able to make one's mark in research at ETH but also with good teaching. And here we have to create incentives.

Does that mean that pedagogical skills will be taken more into account when appointments are made?

I think that appointments should still be based primarily on research activities. We are not just passing on a static body of knowledge to students, we're a university where new knowledge emerges. At ETH we don't want to appoint the best teachers from grammar schools, we also want to train the best such teachers. But we have to help professors to develop the didactic skills needed to deliver good lessons. As a professor I never attended a didactics class. I delivered my lectures in the same way as my own professor delivered his 20 years ago. And this applies to a lot of us.

You were heavily involved in opposing the initiative for a GM moratorium. Are you disappointed about the outcome of this vote?

What disappoints me most is how clearly the initiative was assented to. I hadn't expected that. It illustrates that the dialogue with the population becomes more and more important. And this dialogue isn't just the job of ETH Zurich's 350 professors but also that of its 12,000 students. Technological development proceeds at an ever increasing speed and the importance of a dialogue between scientists and the population is also increasing.

Can ETH present such a united front to the outside?

Of course we're not a brainwashing organisation–after all, we do want to promote cultural variety. But we still need to promote the students' communication abilities. Far too little attention is paid to this, from primary school to grammar school. The manner of communication is extremely important if we want to perform our task.

Do you look upon your new office as a political office?

By all means. We also want to seek out the dialogue with the political establishment. ETH Zurich receives nearly one billion Swiss francs (in numbers 1,000,000,000) a year from taxpayers' money and we have to explain to politicians why this money is a good investment and make clear that every franc from the taxpayers that flows into ETH generates two or three francs of added value. We also have to stand up for internationalisation. As scientists we came of age in an international climate and often forget that awareness of this cannot be taken for granted. When one talks to politicians one sees that they often look at things from an entirely different point of view. This is why it's so important to find a common denominator and to say, "look, it's vital to educate Swiss students in such a way as to enable them to compete internationally".

A number of politicians have a sceptical stance to the world of academe and act accordingly in discussions on the budget. What does ETH Zurich have to do to bring sceptical politicians on board?

Well, I'm not a politician and I must learn how we can do this. But I'm convinced that we must especially seek dialogue with those politicians who believe that everything should be privatised and only applied research should be practiced. It will take a lot of time but this time will be a good investment.

You mentioned the work-life balance earlier on. You are now President of ETH, you still head a research team and you also work in an advisory capacity for your former company. How will you manage to deal with all this?

I am only a scientific advisor for the company now and no longer have much to do there. I've renounced all other duties–Swiss National Science Foundation and other advisor boards–and my work-life balance is redressed. I've certainly got a job that gives me a lot to do but I've always worked hard. As long as I can still find the time to jog inbetween, it will be alright. Only when I start lacking time for this, things will become critical.