ETHIS News
Review of the past nine months.
03.11.2025 – New design for ETHIS
The ETHIS portal has been redesigned with a bright, tile-based layout. The
design change is accompanied by other new features:
- Login now requires multi-factor authentication to increase data
security. - Users can create a personalised home page. In addition, a search function for applications is available. Quick guides, including videos, can be found in ETHIS Help.
- New employees can now register once via the following link.
To ensure a smooth transition to the new ETHIS, all previous ETHIS bookmarks (favourites) in the browser must be deleted and a new bookmark for https://ethis.ethz.ch must be set.
27.10.2025 – Personnel cost forecast – Adjustments
The ETHIS Personnel cost forecast will now take into
account pension fund jumps based on age (18, 22, 35, 45, 55, 66 years) for
subsequent years. If a person reaches the relevant age by 31 December, the new flat rate will be applied for the whole year.
In addition, pension fund administration costs of CHF 120.00 will be taken into account in January for all subsequent years.
29.08.2025 – New Supplier Catalogs on the ETHIS Procurement Platform
The ETHIS procurement platform continues to grow, making purchasing even easier for you! Starting today, three new supplier catalogs are available on the platform:
? Our New Partners
- Starlab – Your partner for laboratory consumables, pipettes, and accessories for everyday lab work.
- Twist – Specialist in synthetic DNA, RNA, and genome solutions for research and development.
- BioConcept – Provider of cell culture media, sera, and additional products for biomedical research.
? Back Online: Dell
After about three months of close collaboration, the Dell catalog is now available again. This gives you direct access to high-quality computer hardware and tailored IT solutions.
? Your Benefits
With these new partners, we are expanding our offering in the areas of laboratory supplies, life sciences, and IT hardware.
This means you can cover your specific needs even better, simplify your
workflows, and move your projects forward more efficiently.
? Check out the new catalogs now – exclusively on the ETHIS procurement platform!
01.07. 2025 – ETHIS workflow reserve transfer
The new workflow allows reserve transfers within the same department and exclusively between reserve PSPs. Example of use: joint reserve financing of a project for which cost allocation is not an option. Authorisations for reserve transfers are set out in the Financial Regulations, Art. 98a.
Instructions for the workflow can be found in the ETHIS Help.
02.06.2025 - Innovations in ETHIS reserve management
In March 2024, the Executive Board decided on various changes to reserve management. These have already been set out in the Financial Regulations (1 January 2025) and in the respective Departmental Reserve Guidelines (1st half of 2025). The operational changes in ETHIS will now take effect on 2 June 2025. The handling of reserves will be simplified and the reserve information will be standardised and clear. The ETHIS team is pleased to contribute to a better common understanding of reserves.
- PSP type 1-9 for research reserve. Academic units have so far managed their research reserve on type 4 PSPs. These will be closed at the end of May and replaced by new type 1-9 PSPs as of 2 June 2025.
- Research reserve can be posted. From 2 June 2025 material and personnel costs can be directly posted to the type 1-9 PSP.
- ETHIS reserves report. The new ETHIS reserves report shows all reserves within a responsibility centre that are categorised as ‘reserves without earmarking’ (Reserven ohne Zweckbindung) in ETH Zurich's accounts and within the department.
- Preannouncement: ETHIS reserve transfer. A new ETHIS workflow ‘Reserve transfer’ is scheduled for the end of June 2025.
You can find detailed information in the latest ETHIS newsletter.
14.04.2025 - Personnel cost forecast
ETHIS offers a personnel cost forecast from this week on. What can it do and how can you use it?
The report shows
? the personnel costs for all current employees in a reponsibility centre as well as for incoming employees whose contracts have already been concluded,
? a five-year cost projection based on existing appointments (current and incoming).
The projection is based on a range of information available in ETHIS, such as the personnel cost budget, project durations, personnel costs already charged, future changes due to promotion and changes in financing or level of employment - provided that these changes are recorded in the system and the associated workflow has been completed. The ETHIS report does not allow simulations of personnel costs in the sense of ‘what if?’ However, the table can be downloaded as an Excel file (including sum formulas), which provides a good basis for your own simulations.
The personnel cost forecast was developed from early 2024 by Daniela Kaufmann (HR Operations), Alessandra Kindle (Controlling) and Nils Tosoni (Rhyno Solutions AG). ‘We took a simple approach: using existing data to offer a better product,’ says Alessandra Kindle. ‘We're quite proud of the fact that we managed to do it in just one year with such a small team.’ From a technical point of view, combining financial and HR data was a challenge, but the good team spirit helped a lot, says Daniela Kaufmann. Both point out that the accuracy of the projection depends on the quality of the data entered in ETHIS: ‘If, for example, a planned hire or an extension of a project duration has not yet been entered, the accuracy of the projection will suffer. However, this may also contribute to a further improvement in data quality in the medium term.’
You can find the new personnel cost forecast under ETHIS > Personal > Personalkosten. For a more detailed description and help, go to ETHIS Help.
Event of September 1, 2022: protected page download slides (German only).
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Imprint
Responsible: Markus Knaus (program manager ETHIS) - Editors: Alessandra Kindle, Simone Roggenbuck - Feedback for ETHIS News: