Thinking Ahead and
Seizing Opportunities

Further boost­ing the pro­por­tion of wo­men in top aca­dem­ic po­si­tions is a cen­tral con­cern of pro­fes­so­rial plan­ning at UZH. As part  of the 2021/22 in­sti­tu­tion­al ac­cre­di­ta­tion, UZH set the goal of ap­point­ing at least 40% wo­men on average over a period of 10 years. UZH clear­ly ex­ceed­ed this tar­get in 2025, with 34 of the 61 new ap­poin­tees being wo­men. The pro­por­tion of wo­men in pro­fes­sor­ships has risen steadi­ly in re­cent years and cur­rent­ly stands at 33%. At 52%, the pro­por­tion of wo­men in as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor­ships was par­ti­cu­lar­ly high in 2025. Ap­point­ing wo­men as as­sis­tant pro­fes­sors is an ef­fec­tive way of further in­creas­ing the pro­por­tion of wo­men oc­cu­py­ing full pro­fes­sor­ship po­si­tions in the me­dium and long term.

UZH re­in­forced its com­mit­ment to Open Science in 2025. In an in­sti­tu­tion­al con­text, this was de­mon­strat­ed by the launch of the Work­ing Group Open Sci­ence, which be­gan ope­rat­ing as an ad­vi­sory and con­cep­tual body for Open Sci­ence and FAIR data ma­nage­ment at the be­gin­ning of 2025. In the year un­der re­view, the work­ing group met four times and, in its role as an ex­change fo­rum, pro­mot­ed the co­or­di­na­tion of cen­tral pro­jects. This in­clud­ed the sign­ing of the Bar­ce­lona De­cla­ra­tion on Open Re­search In­for­ma­tion in July 2025, which count­ed CERN and the Swiss Re­pro­du­ci­bil­ity Net­work among the sig­na­tories from Switzer­land. This step high­lights UZH’s com­mit­ment to con­sis­tent­ly mak­ing re­search in­for­ma­tion open­ly ac­ces­sible, in­clud­ing me­ta­da­ta on pub­li­ca­tions, re­search data, soft­ware and fund­ing, and to sup­port­ing the ne­ces­sary in­fra­struc­tures in the long term. A key step in terms of in­fra­struc­ture was the mi­gra­tion of the ZORA re­po­si­tory, which ac­cu­mu­lates around 10,000 en­tries each year, to the open-source soft­ware DSpace. In order to en­sure long-term sta­bi­li­ty and fu­ture de­ve­lop­ment, the plat­form switched to a sus­tain­able soft­ware basis on 8 Sep­tem­ber 2025.

At the na­tion­al level, UZH was suc­cess­ful in ac­quir­ing third-party funds from the fed­er­al pro­gram for pro­ject-re­lat­ed con­tri­bu­tions, Open Sci­ence II (2025–2026). In total, UZH was in­volved in 24 sup­port­ed pro­jects, and acted as Lead­ing House in 16 of these. Open re­search data was a con­cen­tra­tion of the projects.

At the same time, in the con­text of glob­al geo­po­li­tic­al and tech­no­lo­gic­al de­ve­lop­ments, issues sur­round­ing know­ledge se­cu­ri­ty are be­com­ing sig­ni­fi­cant­ly more im­por­tant. Know­ledge se­cu­ri­ty and Open Sci­ence are in­creas­ing­ly caught be­tween the con­flict­ing in­ter­ests of in­ter­na­tion­al open­ness and the pro­tec­tion of sen­si­tive aca­dem­ic know­ledge, data and in­fra­struc­tures. UZH is ac­tive­ly in­volved in na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing pro­ces­ses in Switzer­land, including in the Work­ing Group Know­ledge Se­cu­rity of swiss­uni­ver­sities. Mean­while, UZH pro­vides guide­lines and tools via the Res­pon­sible In­ter­na­tio­na­li­za­tion Desk that allow risks to be iden­ti­fied at an early stage, mean­ing in­ter­na­tion­al co­ope­ra­tion can be or­ga­nized in ac­cord­ance with Swiss se­cu­rity in­te­rests. Open­ness in aca­dem­ia is one of UZH’s strengths, but it is im­por­tant to ba­lance it with prac­tic­al im­ple­men­ta­tion and, in cer­tain cases, with le­giti­mate se­cu­rity considerations.

With the UZH Ac­ces­sible pro­ject launched in 2024, UZH is pur­su­ing the goal of mak­ing stu­dy­ing, teach­ing and work­ing at the uni­ver­sity as in­clu­sive as pos­sible – in struc­tur­al, di­gi­tal and or­ga­ni­za­tio­nal-cul­tur­al terms. As part of the pro­ject, bar­riers were sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly ana­lyzed and measures de­ve­loped to­gether with UZH mem­bers with dis­abil­ities. Al­though UZH Ac­ces­sible came to a close in 2025, it forms the foun­dation for fur­ther im­ple­men­ta­tion in com­ing years. It is al­ready hav­ing a tan­gible ef­fect to­day: the new­ly cer­ti­fied uni­abil­ity build­ing di­rec­tory pro­vides in­for­ma­tion on ac­ces­si­bil­ity. It is avail­able cen­tral­ly and in a barrier-free for­mat. Cur­rent­ly, around 70 build­ings are lis­ted, and more are being added re­gu­lar­ly. Spe­cif­ic user needs have led to im­proved accessibility.

For­mats such as a series of work­shops on ac­ces­si­bil­ity, as well as Dis­abil­ity Aware­ness Day in 2025, helped to raise aware­ness about what it means to study and work at UZH with a dis­abil­ity or chron­ic ill­ness. Join­ing the Digi­tal In­clu­sion Switzer­land Al­liance on 1 January 2026 means UZH will be­ne­fit from sy­ner­gies and will make gains in ef­fi­cien­cy and com­pe­ten­cy when it comes to break­ing down digi­tal barriers.

To promote respect­ful, open co­ope­ra­tion based on dis­course, UZH has issued a code of con­duct for cam­pus life. It creates a frame­work for con­duct in learn­ing, teach­ing, work­ing and con­duct­ing re­search – both on cam­pus and in di­gi­tal spaces. The code of con­duct helps create a safe, in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment that pro­tects aca­dem­ic free­dom, di­ver­sity of opinion and mu­tual respect.

Since May 2025, work on the con­struc­tion site that will be­come the FORUM UZH has been pro­gres­sing ac­cord­ing to plan. The ne­ces­sary de­con­ta­mi­nation pro­cess was car­ried out, exist­ing build­ings and fa­ci­li­ties were se­lec­tive­ly dis­mantled, and ar­chaeo­lo­gic­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions on the site were com­pleted. More­over, the chal­leng­ing ci­vil en­gi­neer­ing work be­gan, in­clud­ing the re­lo­cation of the exist­ing dis­trict heat­ing duct. The in­tend­ed de­sign was checked based on the fa­cade mock-up, which was also used to ob­tain plan­ning per­mis­sion from the City Plan­ning Of­fice. Con­struc­tion work will begin in 2026, and the build­ing is ex­pect­ed to be ready for use in 2031. The FORUM UZH will serve as a site of in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary co­ope­ration and as a new pub­lic at­trac­tion at UZH.

In 2025, a high-pres­sure labo­ra­tory, the only one of its kind in Europe, was estab­lished at Ir­chel Cam­pus. It was spe­ci­fi­cal­ly de­signed to meet the needs of the de­mand­ing re­search con­duct­ed by the De­part­ment of Chemistry.

The stra­teg­ic pro­ject De­carb UZH – Cli­mate Neu­tra­lity 2030, launched in No­vem­ber 2024, un­der­lines the im­por­tance of cli­mate pro­tec­tion at UZH. The pro­ject iden­ti­fies po­ten­tial and de­fines measures aimed at the sys­te­mat­ic re­duc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions at UZH. In 2025, UZH’s exist­ing goals and stra­te­gies re­lat­ing to cli­mate neu­tra­lity were com­pre­hen­sive­ly ana­lyzed and in some cases ad­justed. Measures to re­duce ener­gy con­sump­tion in la­bo­ra­to­ries were ini­ti­ated and de­ve­lop­ment of a sus­tain­abil­ity dash­board be­gan, among other steps. In ad­dition, measures have been de­ve­loped, for example, to pro­mote in­no­va­tive so­lu­tions for re­duc­ing emis­sions and to im­prove the range of ve­ge­ta­rian and ve­gan food options.

UZH has been test­ing new forms of trans­dis­ci­pli­nary co­ope­ration along­side other uni­ver­si­ties as part of the Real­Trans­form pro­ject since April 2025. The fo­cus is on real ex­pe­ri­ments in which uni­ver­sity em­ployees from aca­dem­ia and busi­ness, stu­dents and re­pre­sen­ta­tives of so­ci­ety joint­ly de­ve­lop ideas and con­cepts for a sus­tain­able uni­ver­sity cul­ture. UZH acts as the Lead­ing House of the pro­ject, which is funded by swissuniversities.

UZH has fur­ther strength­ened its go­ver­nance struc­tures in the area of fi­nance, and has created a new com­pli­ance of­fice. Fi­nance Com­pli­ance su­pports the stan­dard­ized and ap­pro­pri­ate im­ple­men­ta­tion of UZH’s fi­nan­cial re­quire­ments as well as re­le­vant can­ton­al and in­tern­al re­gu­la­tions, and con­tri­butes to the trans­pa­ren­cy and trace­abil­ity of fi­nan­cial pro­ces­ses. In con­junc­tion with in­for­ma­tion se­cu­rity, the in­tern­al con­trol sys­tem and the risk manage­ment sys­tem mo­der­nized in 2024, Fi­nance Com­pli­ance forms an in­te­gral part of the uni­ver­sity’s manage­ment and go­ver­nance instruments.

2025 was a re­cord year for the UZH Foun­dation thanks to de­di­cated foun­dations, pri­vate in­di­vi­duals and com­pa­nies. In close co­ope­ration with UZH re­sear­chers, it ac­quired pledged do­na­tions of CHF 75 million – the high­est amount of pri­vate third-party funds since the foun­dation was created in 2012. Apart from fund­ing for pro­jects, the dis­tinc­tion for out­stand­ing re­search played an im­por­tant role. UZH awarded the Gretener-Thürle­mann Prize, worth CHF 0.5 million, for the first time in 2025. It will con­tinue to be given an­nual­ly. Since the UZH Foun­da­tion was estab­lished, 2,700 pri­vate in­di­vi­duals, com­pa­nies and foun­dations have pro­vid­ed UZH with fi­nan­cial sup­port, con­tri­but­ing a total of CHF 440 million to pro­mote re­search and teaching.