Welcome to Switzerland
A recent survey showed that PhD students and postdocs joining ETH Zurich from abroad need more non-academic support to help them settle in Zurich. The Executive Board responded with a Welcome Center.
As globalization increases, so too does the competition among top universities to win young talented scientists from around the world. This means that in addition to having a good reputation and an excellent infrastructure, universities must be able to offer attractive surroundings and convenient services that allow incoming foreigners to smoothly adapt and adjust to their new working and living environments. While migrating to a new country on the account of a new job is quite an exciting adventure, figuring out the daily ins-and-outs of a country or even a city can be overwhelming.
A helping hand
With this in mind, the Human Resources department at ETH Zurich conducted a survey to find out what its present international PhD students, postdocs and researchers need in terms of non-academic services to make them feel at home. The results revealed that they often faced immigration issues and challenges ranging from incorporating family and spouse in the transition to finding housing or childcare, to buying the proper insurances or simply understanding daily life in Switzerland.
Although a variety of integration services were already available to this target group, many of them were dispersed among different organizational units and departments. Essentially, ETH Zurich lacked a coordination center that could direct scientific staff to the right source of assistance. Hence, the ETH Executive Board commissioned the creation of the Welcome Center, which is comprised of a new website, launched on 6 February, and help desk that is scheduled to open in April of this year.
Human Resources along with other internal departments and organisations such as AVETH, kihz, the Housing Office, the Language Center and especially the professorial and institutional administrative assistants have been working in collaboration to coordinate existing servicing and introduce new ones.
The new website has a prominent place on the ETH Internet and functions as an entry point to all available services, as it is linked to the necessary service departments that potential and existing scientific staff need to get acquainted with life on campus and in Switzerland.
From information about work visas to English translations of work contracts, to practical tips on insurances, paying taxes and budgeting income in relation to the cost of living, scientific staff can now easily find answers to their non-academic questions. And if the web portal is not enough, the help desk will soon be open for face-to-face assistance.
Towards internationalism
ETH Zurich, an academic leader in technology and research, belongs to the category of universities in the global race to recruit first-rate students and researchers. In 2013 at ETH Zurich around 4,600 doctoral and postdoctoral students and research assistants are employed, 50 percent of which came from EU or EFTA countries and another 23 percent from other location abroad. The number of international scientists has grown by 15 percent since 2005 and is expected to continue growing in the years to come.
This steady progression towards internationalism further strengthens the university’s position as an important member of the global scientific community. Not only is ETH Zurich committed to collaborating with peers around the world to find solutions to the current and upcoming global challenges, it also aims to create a diverse campus environment where international talent meets local talent to work together in the spirit of scientific and technological innovation.