On 27 March 2024 the Federal Council appointed Anna Fontcuberta i Morral as the next President of EPFL. She will succeed Martin Vetterli on 1 January 2025. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral made a presentation to the ETH Board regarding the future organisation of EPFL and the composition of its Executive Board. The latter will include six Vice Presidencies, of which two are new: a Vice Presidency for Support to Strategic Initiatives and a Vice Presidency for Human Development.
The ETH Board has made four new appointments to the EPFL Executive Board, to take effect on 1 January 2025: Ambrogio Fasoli, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Stéphanie Lacour, Vice President for Support to Strategic Initiatives, Edouard Bugnion, Vice President for Innovation, and Marianne Wannier, Vice President for Human Development. The Vice Presidents for Finances, Françoise Bommensatt, and for Operations, Matthias Gäumann, will continue in post, thus ensuring stability for EPFL in these areas.
Professor Ambrogio Fasoli is a Full Professor in the School of Basic Sciences (SB), former Director of the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL and CEO of the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion. In addition, he is Provost Delegate of EPFL, having served as Associate Vice President for Research from January 2021 to February 2024.
Professor Stéphanie P. Lacour is a Full Professor in the School of Engineering (STI) at EPFL; a renowned specialist in neurotechnology, she has won numerous awards and prizes for her research. From 2018 to 2022 she was a member of the EPFL Committee for Academic Evaluation. She has been a member of the EPFL Academic Strategic Committee since July 2023.
Professor Edouard Bugnion is a Full Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) at EPFL. He has gained valuable experience in the area of innovation and technology transfer and maintains close links with Swiss and international industry. Having served as Vice President for Information Systems between 2017 and 2020, he has already played an important part in the governance of EPFL.
Marianne Wannier is currently the interim Head of Human Resources at EPFL. After working in the private and non-governmental sector, from 2008 to 2019 she was Head of Human Resources for the EPFL School of Engineering (STI), the Space Center and the Integrative Food and Nutrition Center. From 2019 to 2023 she was Head of Human Resources at the Swiss Federal Roads Authority in Bern.
The ETH Board also took note of the departure of Gisou van der Goot, Vice President for Responsible Transformation, and Ursula Oesterle, Vice President for Innovation, and thanked them for their valuable services.
Cap on admissions to EPFL of students with foreign educational qualifications
From the autumn semester 2025, a cap will be placed on the number of foreign students with foreign educational qualifications admitted to the EPFL Bachelor’s degree programme. The ETH Board took this decision at its meeting in the wake of consultations both within the ETH Domain and with the federal administration. Persons who hold a Swiss passport or a Swiss Matura are not affected by the cap on admissions and continue to have free access. The number of places for foreign students with foreign educational qualifications (such as the German Abitur or the French Baccalauréat) admitted as first-year Bachelor’s students will be capped at an annual total of 3000. Admission will be granted according to the candidates’ ability. This cap on admissions will apply up to and including the autumn semester 2028. It may be extended, depending on how the situation develops. The cap is being brought in at the request of the EPFL Executive Board. Due to the continued growth in student numbers, the Executive Board has identified a shortage of capacity which poses a significant risk to teaching quality at EPFL.
Strong growth in student numbers brings challenges
The ETH Board notes the continuing strong growth in student numbers at both Federal Institutes of Technology. For the autumn semester 2024, ETH Zurich has received 13% more enrolments for Bachelor’s degrees compared with last year, 80% being from Switzerland. A similar increase is emerging for Master’s students. EPFL also continues to see high growth in student numbers, at 5%. In one sense this is very gratifying, since our country needs a well-qualified workforce. On the other hand, the gap between the funding available to the two Federal Institutes of Technology and the number of students taught continues to widen. The student/teacher ratio is therefore steadily deteriorating, and with it the quality of the education provided. Despite the various measures introduced by the two Federal Institutes of Technology and the four research institutes (such as the suspension of investments in research on health, digitalisation, the environment and agriculture, as well as the cap on admissions to EPFL and the recruitment freeze), the ETH Domain will not be able to compensate for the lack of federal resources – even if the institutions run down their reserves even faster than at present. According to the current plan, the reserves will stand at no more than CHF 300 million or so by the end of the ERI period 2025–2028. This is CHF 1.2 billion less than at the end of 2019.
