current survey

Since the beginning of 2007 a project group at Actionuni has been working on a survey of the situation of the intermediary staff of the Swiss universities and federal institutes of technology (FIT’s). The survey is being carried out on behalf of the state secretariat for education and research (SER). Actionuni exists since 2000 and rerpresents the interests of the intermediary staff on national and international levels. For more information about Actionuni and its history, click here (only in French and German).

The aim of the research
The aim of the survey is to generate an up-to-date and detailled picture of the conditions in which the academic intermediary staff works, studies and conducts research. The last major study to examine the situation of the intermediary staff was conducted by Levy et al. ( René Levy , Patricia Roux, Pierre Gobet (1997): La situation du corps intermédiaire dans les hautes écoles suisses. Bern: Schweizerischer Wissenschaftsrat) . There is no data for the whole of Switzerland which is more up-to-date. The present survey intends to fill the gap and, by way of comparison with Levy et al.’s results, to point to developpements and inertia in Swiss universities over the last decade. As a pilot study, a further aim is to lay the foundations of continuous monitoring of the situation of the intermediary staff in Swiss universities.

Survey
The research is based on the empirical data gained from the online survey of doctoral candidates an the intermediary staff of the universities and FIT’s. The survey is only possible thanks to the cooperation and support of all ten cantonal universities and both federal institutes for technology. The project group has developped an questionnaire drawing from the work of Levy et al. and other relevant research, to ensure a high level of comparability. The online survey tool which has been developped makes for a very efficient survey and in particular has filter capability, meaning that survey respondents only have to answer questions relevant to their situation.

Confidentiality
We guarantee complete confidentiality of the personal information of the people who answer the questionnaire. In particular, their employers have no access whatsoever to the answers. The data entered is sent over the internet using an encrypted connection (https). The analysis and publication of the data will be done in such a manner as to ensure that the identification of individual persons is not possible.

Project group
The group respondable for the conception and execution of the research is:

Dr. Philippe Curty
Dissertation in theoretical physics
Universität Zürich / Scimetrica GmbH

Dr. des. Matthias Hirt
Dissertation in history
Manager of the Association of the intermediary staff of the university of Berne (MVUB)

Dr. Katja Wirth
Dissertation in psychology
National Contact Point European Research Council (ERC), Euresearch

Lic. phil. Chris Young
Master in sociology
Currently working on a doctorate in sociology