Equality Monitoring

• Professorships: In 2024, 37 persons assumed a professorship at ETH Zurich. 46 percent of those are women. In the last ten year, this percentage was increased, for example compared to 2014 when women professors made up 17 percent of new hires. Still, with 19 percent the proportion of women on the professorship level (FP and AssP) is low. It is rising slowly but constantly, with a plus of 1.6% compared to the previous year.
  
  At the level of assistant professorships the increase compared to 2023 amounts to a solid +5.8%. With a share of 45 percent this is the academic level with the highest proportion of women at ETH Zurich.
  The differences between the departments in terms of annual growth and the proportion of women remain large. Particularly at the departments D-CHAB (+27.4%), D-MATH (+24.7%) und D-MATL (+11.1%) the total number of women assistant professors rose sharply in 2024. With 75 percent, D-PHYS has the largest proportion of women on the level of assistant professorships.
  
  On the level of full and associate professorships (FP), the proportion of women had the sharpest increase at the departments D-GESS (+4.6%), D-MATH (+3.2%) and D-BSSE (+3%), with D-HEST continuing to have the highest proportion of women professors with 39% in 2024. For three departments, the proportion of women is under 10 percent: D-INFK (8%), D-ITET (9%), D-PHYS (6%).
  
  
• Senior scientists and leading scientists: Among senior scientists and leading scientists (SS), all of whom have a permanent position, the proportion of women at ETH has hardly changed in 2024 since the previous year (+0.1% compared to 2023).
  Compared to the other academic levels, it remains at the lowest point (15%) and has stagnated at this level since 2015. It is worth noting that there are also major differences between the departments here: the proportion of women at D-MATH is 42%, while most other departments have a much lower proportion of women. The D-BSSE has never had a woman in this position since 2017 and similarly, no woman has held a permanent position as senior scientist at the D-MATL since 2021.
  
  
• Established researchers and scientific collaborators: The people at the level of established researchers and scientific collaborators (ERS) have fixed-term contracts. Here, the proportion of women has increased by 1.5 percent and stands at 29 percent in 2024.
  A constant rise in the number of women can be observed at D-INFK (+5.4% compared to 2023), the proportion of women was at 2 percent in 2019 and has since risen to 22 percent. The highest proportion of women at the level of ERS is found at D-GESS (43%) and D-USYS (41%).
  
  
• Postdocs: After the proportion of women at the postdoc level increased by 2 percent in 2023, it fell again to 35 percent in 2024 (-0.6%). Since 2017, the proportion of women at this level is constantly at 30 percent or above.
  A continuously above-average increase of the proportion of women is found at D-BAUG (+4.6%) and D-GESS (+7.5%). At D-ARCH (51%), D-HEST (51%) and among extradepartmental postdocs (55%), women are slightly overrepresented at the postdoc level.
  
  
• Doctoral students: On the level of doctoral students, a slow but steady increase of the number of women can be observed. This trend could also be continued in 2024. With a share of 36 percent, the proportion of women has increased by 0.6 percent compared to last year.
  In various departments, the proportion of women is at over 50 percent, examples are D-BIOL (52%), D-GESS (51%), D-HEST (56%), D-USYS (54%) and D-AGRL (61%). At D-MATH, the proportion of women was increased by +5.5 percent compared to 2023.
  
  
• Students: The gender ratio among Bachelor's and Master's students has not changed significantly across ETH in 2024. The proportion of women remains at a low level (women Bachelor's students: 34%, +0.3% compared to 2023; women Master's students: 32%, -0.1% compared to 2023).
  
  Since monitoring began in 2006, very little has changed at Master's level: over this period of 18 years, the proportion of women Master's students has improved by only +0.5 percent, making the Master's level the academic level with the smallest change since the start of monitoring.
  Generally, there are great differences in the proportion of women at the various departments. At D-HEST, D-USYS and D-AGRL it is at 60 percent or above, at D-INFK and D-MAVT at 16 percent and below.
  
  At the Bachelor¡¯s level little has changed in this time period (+4.8% women students compared to 2006).
  At eight departments (D-HEST, D-AGRL, D-USYS, D-UWIS, D-ARCH, D-BIOL, D-CHAB, D-EAPS) there is an equal gender ratio, the highest proportion of women is found at D-HEST and D-AGRL with 62 percent. At other departments the proportion of women students is under twenty percent. An example is D-MAVT (14%), with an increase of +7.6% of the proportion of women compared to 2006.

• In 2024, 40 different first languages are spoken at ETH Zurich, with German continuing to be the language most frequently cited as a first language across all levels.
• After German, the most common first languages at all levels are Italian, English, French and Chinese.
• Italian is the second most common first language spoken by students and technical and administrative staff.
• As in previous years, English is the second most common first language from postdoc to professorship level.
• The Masters¡¯ level is the most diverse in terms of proportion of first language.
• Both proportionally and in terms of the number of first languages named, the group of apprentices is by far the most homogeneous across ETH Zurich. In 2024, 100% of students stated German as their first language.

• In 2024, many different nationalities continue to be represented at ETH Zurich. The proportions of different nationalities and percentage distributions remain constant.
• The academic levels of postdoc, established researchers and scientific collaborators as well as assistant professors continue to have the highest proportions of international researchers in 2024 at 91%, 79% und 83% respectively. These figures have hardly changed in the last five years.
• At most levels, there are no major differences between the genders in terms of nationality. Only at the level of Master's students slightly more men than women without Swiss citizenship study at ETH Zurich (8% difference). In contrast, more women than men without Swiss citizenship are working at the levels of senior scientists (9% difference) and assistant professors (7% difference) in 2024.

BSc = Bachelor's students

MSc = Master's students

Doc = doctoral candidates

Postdoc = postdoctoral candidates and research associates II

ERS= Established Researchers and Scientific Collaborators (fixed-term). Note: Until 2023 this category was abbreviated as SSA in the Equality Monitoring.

SS = senior scientists and leading scientists (permanent contracts)

AssP = assistant professors

FP = full and associate professors (permanent contracts)

TT = tenure track

Techn. & adm. = technical and administrative staff

The observation of a decline in the proportion of women on the academic career ladder after graduation is known as the "leaky pipeline". ETH Zurich has recognised this phenomenon and, among other things, has been offering the career programme "external page Foster. Lead. Promote" for young women scientists together with the other institutions of the ETH Domain since 2007.

The term ¡®leaky pipeline¡¯ is widely used, both in everyday language and in scientific literature. As a metaphor, the term is sometimes criticised because complex career paths are (too) simplified and presented in a linear way, and leaving science can be interpreted as a passive ¡®leak¡¯.

As is standard practice, new professorships at ETH Zurich are posted publicly. An appointment committee is assigned to assess these candidates. The graph on the standard search procedure shows the respective gender proportions for the various stages of this procedure:

• the applicants for the posted professor positions,
• the candidates invited by the appointment committee,
• the new professors taking up office as a result of these procedures.

More information on the appointment process  

There are also professorships that are not awarded via the standard search procedure. See the definition of new hires of professors

The standard search procedure for professors is not used for assistant professorships of young researchers with starting grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) or the European Research Council (ERC). It is also not used for joint professorships where the other university is the leading house. In special cases, ETH Zurich can also fill professorships by means of a so-called direct appointment. The total number of hires, including SNSF, ERC, joint professorships and direct appointments, is shown in the graph "New Hires of Professors".

More informationon the appointment process and direct appointments

A tenure track professorship includes the assurance that, after a successful tenure procedure, a temporary contract will be transferred to a permanent professorship without any further recruitment or appointment procedure. If academics have performed outstandingly during their tenure to date, they can be awarded a permanent professorship via a direct, multi-stage tenure procedure. The decision as to whether such a procedure is initiated, i.e. whether an assistant professorship with or without tenure track is awarded, lies with the respective department. The performance achieved is evaluated by means of an international peer review process. The ETH Tenure Commission assesses all tenure applications and makes a recommendation to the ETH President.

The figures in the graphs refer to full-time equivalents (FTE) for staff and to individuals (headcounts = HC) for the levels below, i.e. students. The exceptions to this are the graphs about new hires and standard search procedures of professorso: There, HC are counted and not FTE. One FTE corresponds to a full-time position at ETH Zurich.

In some graphs, the departments D-AGRL and D-UWIS are shown. These two departments only existed until 2011 in the period shown, which is why the figures for these departments are only available for the years between 2006 and 2011.

The department D-ERDW was renamed Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (D-EAPS) in 2024.

The selection of the department "other" is used if the individuals in question cannot be assigned to a department. This includes the staff units and other school management divisions. The category also includes Competence Centres, affiliated associations as well as extradepartmental teaching and research institutions and projects that are not assigned to a department. The classification is based on the organisation types in the organisation database.

In general, little data is available on many diversity characteristics at ETH Zurich, as is the case at most other Swiss universities. This is mainly due to the protection of the privacy of the individual (e.g. with regard to sexual orientation, religion). As a result, many of the diversity characteristics cannot be collected in a standardised way.

At ETH Zurich, the gender of all ETH members is recorded by default. The standardised collection of data can only be based on what is legally recognised in Switzerland. Furthermore, the figures correspond to those of the Federal Statistical Office for reasons of comparability with other Swiss universities. The Federal Statistical Office also uses the legally recognised binary gender system in its statistics and therefore only the categories woman and man.
Therefore, it remains unclear from the Equality Monitoring figures how many of the ETH members recorded as ¡®man¡¯ or ¡®woman¡¯ are actually trans, inter, non-binary and agender.

The data visualisations of the interactive Equality Monitoring graphs are based on a Tableau software product. Some of the right-click visualisation options provided by Tableau are not suitable for the data shown and result in an incorrect visualisation. ETH Diversity therefore recommends limiting the visualisation options to left-clicking on the data.