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ETH Zurich

Logo: ETH Zürich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons⁴

Public research university in Zurich

ETH Zurich (German: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich; English: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded by the Swiss federal government in 1854, the university primarily teaches and conducts research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). ETH Zurich is widely regarded as one of the world's leading universities, particularly in the sciences, and consistently ranks among the top universities worldwide.² It is headquartered in ETH Zurich main building.¹ Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

Oct 16, 1855Founded¹

HeadquartersETH Zurich main building¹
Websitewww.ethz.ch
Legal formLegal Entity of Public Law³
Kind of organizationPublic body¹
LEI529900JMU27SVQHZ3A79³
StatusActive³
LEI statusIssued and current³
Registered addressRämistrasse 101, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland³
Registered withFederal Statistical Office, CHE-115.203.630³

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ETH Zurich from Polyterrace — Photo: Anand Kesari, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons⁶

Corporate structure

ETH Zurich is part of a group headed by Confédération suisse. 50 entities, 7 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Confédération suisse Bern, Switzerland
- Die Schweizerische Post Bern, Switzerland
  - PostFinance Bern, Switzerland
  - ePost Service AG Subsidiary · Lucerne, Switzerland
  - PostBus Switzerland Subsidiary · Bern
  - PubliBike Subsidiary · Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
  - Post CH Ltd Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - Post CH Network Ltd Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - Swiss Foundation for the History of Post and Telecommunications Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - unblu inc. Subsidiary · Basel, Switzerland
- ETH Zurich Zürich, Switzerland
  - Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems Subsidiary · Zurich
  - Agricultural Economics and Policy Group Subsidiary
  - Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - Institute for Biomedical Engineering Subsidiary · Zurich, Switzerland
  - KOF Swiss Economic Institute Subsidiary · Zurich, Switzerland
  - Military Academy at ETH Zurich Subsidiary · Birmensdorf, Switzerland
  - Signal and Information Processing Laboratory Subsidiary · Zurich, Switzerland
  - Singapore-ETH Centre Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - Swiss Seismological Service Subsidiary · Switzerland
- RUAG MRO Holding Bern, Switzerland
  - RUAG Holding Emmen, Switzerland
    - Beyond Gravity Subsidiary · Zurich
    - MFS 2000 Inc Subsidiary · Sirok
    - RUAG Space AB Subsidiary · Sweden
- Swiss Federal Railways Bern, Switzerland
  - AlpTransit Gotthard AG Subsidiary · Lucerne
  - Cisalpino Subsidiary · Muri bei Bern
  - Login Berufsbildung Subsidiary · Olten, Switzerland
  - RegionAlps Subsidiary · Martigny
  - SBB Cargo Subsidiary · Olten
  - SBB GmbH Subsidiary · Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany
  - SSG Subsidiary
  - THURBO Subsidiary · Kreuzlingen
  - Elvetino Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - Foundation for the historical heritage of SBB Subsidiary · Windisch, Switzerland
  - SBB Insurance AG Subsidiary · Triesen, Liechtenstein
  - SBB Transport Police Subsidiary · Switzerland
  - SBB-Fachstelle Baukultur & Denkmalpflege Subsidiary · Switzerland
- RUAG International Holding AG Subsidiary · Bern, Switzerland
  - Beyond Gravity Austria GmbH Subsidiary · Wien, Austria
  - Beyond Gravity Finland Oy Subsidiary · Tampere, Finland
  - Beyond Gravity Services AG Subsidiary · Zurich Airport, Switzerland
  - Beyond Gravity Sweden AB Subsidiary · Göteborg, Sweden
- SIFEM AG Subsidiary · Geneva, Switzerland
- SKYGUIDE, Société Anonyme Suisse pour les Services de la Navigation Aérienne civils et militaires Subsidiary · Meyrin, Switzerland
- Swiss Post Cybersecurity AG Subsidiary · Aarau, Switzerland
- Swiss Post Insurance Aktiengesellschaft Subsidiary · Schaan, Liechtenstein
- SwissSign AG Subsidiary · Glattbrugg, Switzerland
- École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL Subsidiary · Lausanne, Switzerland

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

History

ETH Zurich was founded on 7 February 1854 by the Swiss Confederation and began giving its first lectures on 16 October 1855 as a polytechnic institute (eidgenössische polytechnische Schule) at various sites throughout the city of Zurich. It initially consisted of six faculties: architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, forestry, and an integrated department for mathematics, natural sciences, literature, and social and political sciences.

Locally, it is still known as Polytechnikum or simply Poly, derived from the original name eidgenössische polytechnische Schule, which translates to "federal polytechnic school".

ETH Zurich is a federal institute under direct administration by the Swiss government. The creation of a new federal university was heavily disputed at the time; liberals advocated for a "federal university," while conservatives wanted universities to remain under cantonal control, fearing an increase in liberal political power. Initially, ETH was co-located in the buildings of the University of Zurich.

From 1905 to 1908, under the presidency of Jérôme Franel, ETH Zurich restructured its course programs to those of a university and was granted the right to award doctorates. The first doctorates were awarded in 1909. In 1911, the institution received its current name, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. Another reorganization in 1924 structured the university into 12 departments. Today, it has 16 departments.

ETH Zurich, along with EPFL and four associated research institutes, forms the "ETH Domain" to collaborate on scientific projects.

ETH Zurich Foundation

The ETH Zurich Foundation (de:ETH Zürich Foundation) is a legal entity on its own (a Swiss non-profit foundation) and as such not part of the ETH Zurich. Its purpose is to raise funds to support chosen institutes, projects, faculty and students at the ETH Zurich. It receives charitable donations from companies, foundations and private individuals. The associated organization ETH Foundation USA raises awareness in the USA specifically. It can be compared with university endowments in the US. However, the ETH Zurich is a public university so that the funds of this foundation are much smaller than at comparable private universities. Examples of funded teaching and research are:

New institutes such as the Wyss Translational Center Zurich

Additional professorships

Read the full text

Rössler Prize

Pioneer fellowships

Excellence scholarships

From Wikipedia’s article on ETH Zurich, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁵

Leadership

Who has led ETH Zurich, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

Chair

Joël Mesot2019–now

197019801990200020102020

ChairJoël Mesot Jan 2019 to now¹

Board members and other officers (1)

Managing directorPaco V Laveille Jan 1, 2021 to now¹

Products and brands

Basel location

The Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) is located on Campus Schällemätteli in close vicinity to the University of Basel, the University Hospital and the Children's Hospital, and several other research institutions as well as major players in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The concentration of life science institutions in this area of Europe, and Basel's tri-national reach, motivated ETH Zurich to establish a satellite campus in Basel in 2007. A train ride of 55 minutes connects the location in Basel with Zurich.

Research and education

Undergraduate education at ETH Zurich is marked by the distinctive Basisprüfungen ("base examinations"), intensive first-year examination blocks, typically encompassing foundational subjects in mathematics, physics, and engineering disciplines. These exams serve both as a filter and as preparation for advanced, research-oriented coursework. Students must pass these examinations within two attempts, with failure rates in mathematics-intensive programmes often reaching between 50% and 60%. Doctoral education at ETH emphasizes hands-on research experience, where PhD candidates are hired directly as paid employees in professors' laboratories, conducting independent research and actively contributing to teaching. Many departments further structure doctoral training through thematic graduate schools, promoting collaborative research with multiple advisers and international cooperation, notably with the University of Zurich.

Its research is especially focused on the STEM areas and ETH hosts several research hubs.

In 2026, ETH Zurich entered a ten-year partnership with IBM focused on artificial intelligence and quantum computing research.

Read the full text

ETH AI Center

The ETH AI Center is ETH Zurich's central hub for artificial intelligence research. It is an active member of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), hosting the ELLIS unit in Zurich and offering ELLIS PhD fellowships. The center comprises 1,500 researchers across 16 departments. Through the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems (CLS), it cooperates closely with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, jointly funding research and supervising doctoral students. It also hosts recurring events, such as the AI+X Summit, the Zurich AI Festival, and AI House Davos.

The center leads projects of national scope, including the Swiss AI Initiative – launched in 2023 as an open-source effort for AI foundation models – operating under the Swiss National AI Institute (SNAI), a joint body of ETH Zurich and EPFL. The center also runs Apertus, an open multilingual language model trained on 15 trillion tokens across over 1,000 languages, among them Swiss German and Romansh.

Swiss National Supercomputing Center

The Swiss National Supercomputing Center is an autonomous organizational unit of the ETH Zurich. It is a national facility based in Lugano-Cornaredo, offering high-performance computing services for Swiss-based scientists. In 2024 it deployed the Alps Supercomputer, existing of over 10,000 H100 Nvidia GPUs, making it one of the largest academic supercomputers in the world.

ETH Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics

The ETH Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics (LIB) is a physics laboratory located in Science City. It specializes in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and the use of ion beam based techniques with applications in archeology, earth sciences, life sciences, material sciences and fundamental physics.

Spin-offs

ETH Zurich promotes technology and knowledge transfer through an entrepreneurial ecosystem to foster spin-offs and start-ups. As of 2022, 527 ETH Zurich spin-off companies had been created.

Singapore-ETH Centre

The Singapore-ETH Centre was established in 2010 by ETH Zurich and Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF). It develops practical solutions to challenges on urban sustainability, resilience, liveability and health. This research hub brings together over 250 researchers worldwide working on the selected topics.

ETH Zurich Campus Heilbronn

A teaching and research center for responsible digital transformation is established on the educational campus of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation in Heilbronn, Germany. Activities are planned in areas such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. This center will be operated in the form of a non-profit limited liability company under German law and started operation at the beginning of 2025.