Resources and documents

Here you can find relevant resources and documents from the European and national level, for example from Eurodoc, the European Commission, swissuniversities, SHK, SWIR etc.

Eurodoc’s handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates

The project SuperProfDoc has led to the publication of a new handbook on the best practices relative to the mentorship of doctoral candidates. Claudia Dobrinski and John Peacock, both from Eurodoc, included the results of numerous experiences of successful doctoral supervisions at European universities to support their study. “A handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates” establishes the state of the art in the professional mentorship of Ph.D. candidates.

Eurodoc Conference 2017 “Open Science” and Annual General Meeting

At this year’s Eurodoc conference from 26-29 April 2017 in Oslo, Norway, Burim Ramaj and Cécile Blaser, both University of Fribourg, represented actionuni. Eurodoc is the European Association of doctoral candidates and young researchers. actionuni (Switzerland) is member in Eurodoc since 2006. In total, 32 organisations are member of Eurodoc, representing their respective European countries and the Council of Europe.

This year’s topic was of the Annual Conference of Eurodoc was “Open Science”, a heavily discussed topic also in Switzerland.

Continue reading Eurodoc Conference 2017 “Open Science” and Annual General Meeting

NZZ dossier – Young academics for research

On 5 April 2017, the NZZ has published an extensive dossier on the situation of the non-professorial academic staff in Switzerland. Co-president Florian Lippke took part in a dispute with swissuniversities president Michael Hengartner; co-president Andrea Tamas via telephone interview gave additional positions on the situation of the non-professorial academic staff at Universities of Applied Sciences and Universities of Teacher Education. The full dossier can be found here.

The federal message on education, research and innovation policy has been published

The BFI-Botschaft / message FRI / messaggio ERI has been defined on 25 February 2016 by the Federal Council. According to the government, in the next four years investments in research and education shall  grow 2%, which is significantly less than in the previous period. This is stated in the federal message on education, research and innovation policy for the years 2017-2010 (BFI-Botschaft), which was passed on 24th February. Back in November 2015, in the course of the stabilisation programm for the national finances 2017-2019 which is currently being negotiated, growth in investments had already been reduced from 3.2 to 2.2 %.  According to a response by swissuniversities, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the ETHs and the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences this puts the role of Switzerland in the area of research, education and innovation into jeopardy at a moment in time in which the country threatens to lose its access to European research programmes. The total budget projected for research and education amounts to 26 billion CHF. Continue reading The federal message on education, research and innovation policy has been published

New Federal Act on the Funding and Coordination of the Higher Education Sector

On 1 January 2015 the new law named HFKG / LEHE / LPSU / HEdA (Hochschulförderungs- und -koordinationsgesetz / Loi fédérale sur l’encouragement des hautes écoles et la coordination dans le domaine suisse des hautes écoles / Legge federale sulla promozione e sul coordinamento del settore universitario svizzero / Federal Act on the Funding and Coordination of the Higher Education Sector) went into effect.

Unlike before, from now on all federal institutes of technology, cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences, universities of teacher education and other tertiary A level institutions are united under the same legal basis.