(nst) Wednesday last the ETH Board outlined the structures of the intended institutionally overlapping competence centres within the ETH Domain. In autumn 2004 the ETH Board had announced these centres and decided on them six months ago(1). Individual teaching and research institutions in the ETH domain will thus to be more strongly networked and the ensuing potential for innovation made more directly useful to industry and society.

ETH Zurich: leading house for environment and sustainability

On Wednesday then, it was decided in particular that, initially there will be the following competence centres: "Environment and Sustainability" (leading house: ETH Zurich), "Energy and Sustainable Mobility" (leading house: Paul-Scherrer Institute) and "Materials Sciences and Technologies" (leading house: EPF Lausanne). Supreme responsibility for the centres lies with the ETH Board itself. The respective leading house is responsible for the operative management. "The leading house is the institution that is accountable to the ETH Board," as Alexander Zehnder, President of ETH Board, told ETH Life. With regard to scientific goals, but also, according to Zehnder, "as far as finances are concerned: funds for the competence centres will go through the leading house".

The strategic and content leadership of each competence centre will lie with a steering group, whose members will include representatives from all participating institutions in the ETH domain, as well as representatives from industry. In addition, there will be corresponding bodies responsible for quality control and scientific advice in each centre.

The activiies of the competence centres are organised along the lines of Education and Research Units (ERUs), according to flexible scientific aspects. It is foreseen that these ERUs will build a network, distributed amongst the numerous locations of the institutions that make up the ETH domain. According to the statement from the ETH Board neither the management nor the location of the ERUs are tied to the corresponding leading house, whether regarding personnel or as far as location is concerned. It was, however, possible that research competences could be rearranged in future within the institutions of the ETH domain. "We must keep all our options open," explains Alexander Zehnder. This flexibility was also cultivated in the discussions of the ETH Board. Besides, this was an entirely normal process: "The rearrangement of research activities and groups has always taken place where it was recognised to be necessary and sensible," said the President of the ETH Board. As Director of EAWAG, for instance, he had been involved in the transfer of atmospheric chemistry from EAWAG to ETH Zurich.

Empa remains in Dübendorf

Regarding the question, long discussed in the media, of the future of materials science research in Switzerland–including speculations of a relocation (2) of Empa from Dübendorf to Lausanne among others–Zehnder says: "There will certainly be shifts in this area. But a transfer of Empa from Dübendorf to Lausanne was not a subject of the ETH Board's deliberations".

Before the end of the year the ETH Board will pass the definitive structures of the three competence centres and make the first decisions on the composition of the steering groups.