ETH Zurich has opened an administrative investigation into allegations made against a professorship in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) in Basel. This is in response to doctoral students’ reports about potential poor management and support.
The doctoral students had alerted ETH in order to draw attention to possible grievances. “We take this matter very seriously and investigate all claims very thoroughly, review and evaluate the available information and give all parties a fair hearing. Although this requires time and balanced judgement, it is essential, as our goal is always to learn from the situation,” ETH President, Lino Guzzella, explains.
The internal preliminary evaluation has now prompted the Executive Board to open an administrative investigation. The purpose of this independent external investigation is to check whether the allegations made are in fact justified and whether measures need to be taken to improve the working environment of doctoral students in the faculty and department in question.
The Executive Board has already highlighted the importance of respectful conduct by launching the Respect campaign and the new Code of Conduct. Counting this new case, there are now four administrative investigations currently under way at ETH Zurich. As these investigations are complex and lengthy procedures, it is still unclear how long they will take. ETH Zurich’s policy is not to make any comments on the proceedings until the individual investigations have been completed.
This release was first published 18 July 2018 by ETH Zurich.
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