The?Doctoral?Supervisor’s Handbook?has been specifically improved and now provides even better support to doctoral supervisors with questions about administration and supervision. At the same time, the results of the 2025?scientific staff?survey show that satisfaction among?scientific?staff?remains?high.
ETH Zurich is continuously developing its framework conditions for the supervision of doctoral students and the working conditions of scientific staff – for example, with the latest optimisation of the Doctoral Supervisor’s Handbook. Important insights for these developments are provided, among other things, by the results of the annual mid-level faculty survey.
Improved Doctoral Supervisor’s Handbook provides better guidance
The Doctoral Supervisor’s Handbook website overview is primarily aimed at doctoral supervisors and serves as a central information and support tool for administrative questions and supervision-related topics. The content has recently been revised and clarified. The focus was particularly on the following topics:
- Procedure for contract extensions,
- Dealing with performance problems
- Clarification of processes in the event of withdrawal from supervision.
The revised information provides additional clarity, increases the transparency of processes and strengthens the confidence of supervisors in demanding situations.
Positive signals from the 2025 scientific staff survey
The recently published results of the 2025 scientific staff survey complement these developments from a different perspective. As in previous years, overall satisfaction among the doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and established researchers surveyed remained high in 2025 – and even increased in some areas. Positive tendencies can also be seen in satisfaction with doctoral student remuneration.
These results show that the measures implemented in recent years are increasingly having an effect. These include optimisations in the supervision of doctoral students and offers to promote mental health.
Overall, the survey results confirm that we are on the right track: the measures in the defined areas of action are well chosen and should be pursued consistently.
Further development
Together, the clarifications in the Doctoral Supervisor’s Handbook and the results of the scientific staff survey highlight the importance of long-term and consistent measures. They contribute to further strengthening the quality of support and sustainably improving the working conditions of scientific staff.
Clarified Directives for doctoral students employed at ETH Zurich
In the course of these developments, the Directives for doctoral students employed at ETH Zurich were also clarified. Specifically, this concerns the elimination of the employment requirement and the procedure in the event of the absence from duty of the supervisor.
The corresponding information sheet has been updated and presents the updated regulations in a clear and comprehensible manner. Employees and supervisors are asked to take the new version into account.
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