People and Infrastructure
Working at UZH mainly means working together. The university is improving the prerequisites for this collaboration – digitally, organizationally and spatially.
New technologies, digital platforms and increasing mobility are all shaping the learning and working worlds of the UZH community. With the aim of remaining attractive as an educational institution and as an employer, UZH is continually developing its support structures and facilities to meet the needs of its community. We aim to make internal processes and services more efficient, which requires the establishment of high-quality data storage and systematic data management.
Headed towards a digital future
The UZH research and teaching community has positioned itself as a prominent player in digital transformation, boasting experts with a wide range of skills and knowledge for dealing with digital technologies. In 2023, the Executive Board of the University approved a digital strategy in order to further strengthen these skills and to coordinate and accelerate the use of digital technologies for research, teaching and services. Moreover, a seven-member Digital Strategy Board was created that can consult the Executive Board on strategic issues related to digitalization. This board has been tasked with drafting an implementation agenda by spring 2024. The digital strategy was developed in consultation with members of the UZH community. It sketches out objectives that the university aims to gradually work towards over the next few years and establishes a framework in which this transformation process can take place.
Digital hygiene for HR
The HREvolution project is also connected to UZH’s digital strategy. The goal of the project is to ensure that all UZH employees receive efficient end-to-end digitized HR services where it makes sense to do so. To reach this goal, both centralized and decentralized HR services are being brought into better alignment within the entire HR organizational structure. Tasks, authority levels and responsibilities are being clarified, and the process for professorial appointments and negotiations is being refined so that it is efficient, fair and transparent while supporting the strategic interests of the university. The initial project work was completed in 2023, with implementation scheduled to take place over the course of 2024.
Space for networked collaboration
Construction and renovation projects offer an opportunity to create spaces that foster networked collaboration at UZH. FORUM UZH is a planned learning and research center that will set new standards in this regard. The Parliament of the Canton of Zurich approved the budget request for this large capital project in March 2023, and the application for the construction permit was submitted the following September. Another major step was the conclusion of the project competition for PORTAL UZH, also in 2023. PORTAL UZH is a proposed research and teaching building that will play a key role in updating and expanding Irchel Campus.
The faculties, departments, institutes and central administrative offices need to optimize their use of financial resources in order to successfully plan for strategic future developments. Until now, the university’s 300 units have organized their finances autonomously, which has mostly proven to be a sound way of doing things. However, this heterogeneous approach to financial management is less efficient once a unit wants to set new priorities or has new management that still needs to learn the ropes at UZH. This is why UZH is revamping its financial organization, with the goal of making financial management easier for all units regardless of size and to create a shared university-wide understanding of what financial management entails.
UZH will be introducing a modular financial structure to achieve this. In 2023, the “Finanzielle Führung UZH” project defined four standardized profiles and three implementation models, distinguishing between management roles, process management, resource management and financial administration. Depending on the implementation model, the roles can be fully assumed by employees within a unit, or they can be partially delegated to other units if necessary. Implementation planning begins in 2024 – the phase during which roles are assigned and all units select the model appropriate for their needs. A modular approach to financial organization will yield efficiency gains and relieve the burden on management. It simplifies the process of onboarding new employees and transferring employees from one unit to another. It also promotes knowledge exchange between employees with financial support duties.
Good leadership is an essential ingredient in high-quality collaboration. Over the past several years, UZH has expanded its continuing education courses for fostering the leadership and management skills of its people. In 2022, these courses were combined and integrated into the newly founded Leadership and Governance Academy. In 2023, a leadership program for newly appointed professors was launched, along with special add-on courses for highly qualified staff in the Faculty of Medicine and the Vetsuisse Faculty.
In 2023, the university approved a strategy for construction and real estate management through the year 2032, which should help ensure sustainable spatial development in every aspect. The strategy places emphasis on involving future users of the spaces and on working together with the university’s partners in the public and private sectors. This participation-based planning approach corresponds with the goal of creating spaces that allow for networked collaboration.
This strategy was already implemented during the utilization planning for FORUM UZH, which will serve as the future main building of the university, with space for teaching, learning, research, sports, dining and public events. By interweaving these different purposes, the building will serve as a place where researchers, educators and students can mingle and where members of the academic community can interact with society. As part of the utilization planning process, which concluded in 2023, future users were represented in 50 working groups that identified integrative solutions for the building.
UZH embraces a culture of open science and works together with other universities towards this end. The university took part in the federal Open Access Strategy Review in 2023. One of the issues concerned the legal framework for scholarly publications, with UZH leading the creation of an expert report on secondary publication rights. To bring publishing closer to the academy again, UZH pursued its commitment to open access by expanding its HOPE journal platform as well as ZORA, the Zurich Open Repository and Archive.
Another one of the university’s priorities in connection with open science is shared usage data in accordance with FAIR principles, meaning the data needs to meet standards of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability. An important step in this direction was the launch of the Language Repository of Switzerland (LaRS). It is based on SWISSUbase and serves as a field-specific repository for linguistic research data that adheres to the FAIR principles and can be used nationwide. In 2023, a number of researchers at UZH were able to successfully obtain funding for open research data from swissuniversities in order to implement the FAIR principles in their respective fields. The Data Stewards Network, which is made up of 20 subject experts, was founded to support UZH researchers with data management issues. The university also hosted various events to spark discussion on the topic of open scientific culture.
The University Library Zurich (UB) and the Zentralbibliothek Zürich (ZB) are working on strengthening their existing partnership to ensure and improve the provision of information for researchers, instructors and students at UZH. They approved a joint strategy in 2023 that defined five priorities: supporting open science, connecting science and society, fostering digital skills, rethinking spaces and developing employees and structures. The implementation will take place from 2024 to 2027 in phase three of the “Aufbau Universitätsbibliothek” project.
