Graduate links and research key to ETH spin-off success, says President Eichler

The  companies spun out of work at the ETH Zürich result from a combination of its graduate’s links with the economy and its research, said ETH President Ralph Eichler this week at the university’s annual media conference.

But the ETH not only contributes towards growth, said Eichler: it also has to continue to grow itself. Faced with international competition, increasing student numbers and the lack of engineers in Switzerland, the university believes it must strengthen its position as an internationally recognised top-flight university.

Yet further growth cannot be financed from federal funds, making ETH Zurich more reliant than ever on third-party funding, acknowledged Eichler. These external funds, which include state research funding such as the Swiss National Science Foundation, reached 215 million Swiss francs (€132 million) last year, up 17 per cent on the previous year. That sum was boosted by 35 million Swiss francs with donations through the ETH Zurich Foundation. 

Ralph Eichler said that after a sound theoretical basis and world-class research, the transfer of knowledge and technology is the third most important pillar of science’s mission – though this transfer often takes place unseen and in silence. 

Since 2003, 69 spin-off companies have emerged from ETH Zürich and have created several thousand jobs. Around 80 per cent of the young firms survive the critical first five years, which according to Peter Chen, Vice-President for Research, better than spin-offs from American universities. More than a third of the companies formed are involved in information and communication technology.