Equal opportunities

A strong institutional anchorage and commitment of the top management is a central factor for the implementation and effectiveness of gender balance and equal opportunity policies. The responsibility for implementing and communicating such policies lies with the Presidents or Directors and the Executive Boards of the respective institutions and with the heads of their sub-entities (e.g. faculties, departments, administration) according to the institutions’ individual structure. The development and implementation of equal opportunity policies in the ETH Domain institutions is supported by professional structures, as well as by staff with adequate resources linked to a member of the executive boards or boards of directors.

Implementing a strategy on gender balance and equal opportunities for women and men requires goals, implementation measures and monitoring instruments. All ETH Domain institutions formulate their own specific Equal Opportunities/Gender Action Plans (EOAP/GAPs) based on the focus areas outlined in the present document. In general, monitoring methods and assessment instruments used by the institutions should strive to ensure an adequate comparability of the results. The monitoring reports mention the goals set by the individual institutions and provide information whether and how these goals were attained. The institutions publish both, their monitoring reports and individual strategies.

An appropriate financial commitment is essential for strengthening existing efforts or launching new instruments on the level of the individual institutions. Therefore, the ETH Domain institutions will spend at least 0.5% of the overall annual Federal financial contribution for implementing measures supporting the promotion of equal opportunities. The financial resources should be used to foster gender balance and equal opportunities for women and men in a broad sense. The respective measures should be diverse and well balanced. At least two thirds of the 0.5% target proportion should be used for measures other than supporting regular childcare facilities.¹ These provisions apply for all ETH Domain institutions together. Specific target proportions per institution will be set in the individual target agreements between the ETH Board and the ETH Domain institutions.

^{1 Regular childcare facilities are facilities, which cover the daily needs at the institutions. The limitation does not apply to additional offers, like day nurseries and childcare facilities for specific occasions.}

Gender stereotypes and biases are an impediment to gender balance and equal opportunities. All ETH Domain institutions take action to enhance awareness among their members regarding stereotypes and their impacts. They implement measures to systematically identify these stereotypes; these measures include e.g. workshops, lectures, online tools, etc. The ETH Domain institutions are also committed to detecting internal structural gender biases. They ensure equal treatment regarding salary conditions and access to resources and follow the rules of the Swiss Charter for equal pay in the public sector, which all ETH Domain institutions signed.
All institutions strive to create an inclusive culture at all levels, which values all gender identities. They implement a code of conduct, emphasising mutual respect and the prevention of discrimination, bullying, mobbing, threats, violence and sexual harassment, as key elements. The institutions fully dedicate themselves to train their members to comply with these principles. They position themselves firmly and categorically against inappropriate behaviour, such as listed above, and take clear, effective and strong measures against it. They will continue to raise awareness and sensitivity to unconscious biases among all their members and to train their leaders in the realization of their fiduciary duty.

Finally, the institutions of the ETH Domain integrate gender balance and equal opportunities for women and men into their various communication activities. They specifically endeavour to ensure an appropriate representation of women and men at public events and in representative situations. The institutions of the ETH Domain communicate in gender-impartial language.

Information on the institutions’ equal opportunities strategy, action plans and measures is easily accessible and is part of the information packages for employees and students.

Based on monitoring and benchmarking, each institution will set quantitative targets and specific measures for increasing the proportion of women in academia, administration and technical professions, in line with the institution’s particular situation.

ETH Zurich and EPFL take appropriate measures to ensure that more women enrol in their Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in fields of current underrepresentation. To this end, they also cooperate with secondary and teacher training institutions and other stakeholders active in the promotion of science outreach and education. They actively support female and male students throughout their studies in order to ensure equal chances for success.

The ETH Domain institutions take measures to attract the most talented female and male students and researchers, and to allow them to strive and excel on an equal footing. They develop strategies to increase the share of women at doctoral and postdoc levels in fields of current underrepresentation and take specific action to foster female leadership. The institutions support measures such as mentoring, training and coaching intended to guide students towards academic, industrial and entrepreneurial careers, where appropriate with a specific focus on the promotion of the careers of women.

Achieving a significant increase in the number of female professors and senior scientists, and improving career perspectives for women requires targets and actions by all institutions, faculties or departments. As a basic standard, these actions should include the proactive search for female candidates, training for the hiring committee members to eliminate unconscious biases and stereotypes at all levels within the institutions, and proactive efforts to retain female professors and senior scientists.

The ETH Domain institutions and the ETH Board strive for an appropriate gender balance for management positions (lower, middle and upper management), decision-making bodies at all levels (such as committees for research, strategy, hiring or tenure track evaluation), as well as in highly segregated sectors of the technical and administrative staff, including apprentices. The institutions regularly assess the gender balance in recruitment and promotion procedures, as well as in access to and take-up of staff development measures.

The institutions of the ETH Domain also address dual career issues and ensure that corresponding expertise is shared among them and that cross-institutional coordination is established. Also, they implement adequate measures to reconcile a career and family-related tasks which are relevant to the career promotion of women and men. Similarly, instruments for compensation for parental leave, i.e. maternity leave, paternal leave and leave for non-birth parents², or family-related absences are in place (such as a “stop the clock scheme” for tenure track positions or contract prolongation opportunities for doctoral and postdoc researchers).

^{2 Non-birth parents are regarded as the non-biological parents of a child.}

The institutions of the ETH Domain and the ETH Board provide work conditions supporting a good “life domain balance”, which represents a more encompassing concept in comparison with the notion of work-life balance. The balance should be conducive to equal opportunities for women and men.

Day nurseries and childcare facilities for specific occasions (like emergency childcare, holiday activities, or childcare solutions for conferences) are further developed, based on the assessment of employees’ and students’ needs. A similar process applies for developing framework conditions to support care of the elderly, or enhanced care requirements of family members.

Solutions for work flexibility are promoted for women and men. Professors and leaders are alerted to the relevance of work flexibility and family-friendliness in achieving excellence in their respective institutions. Support and incentives to ensure the compatibility of work flexibility and family-friendliness with the institutions’ excellence goals are provided. Furthermore, the gender aspects of virtual work forms, like home office, are taken into account. The institutions of the ETH Domain provide employees and students with information and counselling, so that they are aware of the wide availability of family-friendly work and study conditions.

The ETH Domain institutions take measures to ensure that gender-related aspects are taken into account in research projects, large research programmes and in (institutional) evaluations. They engage to train people involved in teaching, assessment and curriculum development to be aware of potential gender differences in learning strategies and perceived self-efficacy, as well as of their impact on examination methods. The measures adopted ideally build on research, innovative approaches and best-practice examples.