ETH Zürich budget complaint rejected

The Upper House of the Swiss Parliament has rejected ETH Zürich’s recent complaint about the ETH Board’s budget allocation procedure. 

According to the Swiss Confederation, the Parliament found that ETH Zürich was not justified in its complaint against the Swiss Federal Department of Home Affairs, though it did note the existence of internal conflict between ETH Zürich and the ETH Board and stated the need for constructive discussion.

“ETH Zürich accepts the government's decision and is confident that the complaint has had effect,” said Verena Schmid Bagdasarjanz, head of corporate communications and ETH Zürich spokeswoman.

“The complaint outcome was that the Bundesrat rejected to follow the complaint but nevertheless it will have an indirect positive effect for us because it was a clear signal towards the ETH Domain,” added Schmid, “We think that the complaint ETH made will result in a better organization of the meetings of the ETH Domain and…that discussions about allocation of finance will be taken more seriously in the future.”

In the original complaint, ETH Zürich was critical of the manner in which the ETH Board distributed funding between the two ETH universities of Lausanne and Zürich.  Despite both universities receiving a budget increase, Zürich claimed the relatively higher funding increase for the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne was not properly justified or correctly presented at the board meeting of May 23-24, 2007.  ETH Zürich also claimed the figures were published in a misleading way.

However, since then, ongoing Parliamentary negotiations have led to an extra CHF 10 million being allocated to ETH Zürich for the general budget and education.  For 2008, ETH Zürich now stands to receive CHF 994 million and EPF Lausanne will receive CHF 488 million from a total of CHF 1,939 million for the two universities and four research institutes.

According to the Swiss Confederation, the budget adjustments will strengthen the strategic scope of action for ETH Zürich’s new president Ralph Eichler who will be able to introduce new strategic initiatives and set priorities.