Swiss mid-level academic staff associations call for maintaining funding for Switzerland’s high-quality research and teaching
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The Federal Council confirmed today it will proceed with the plans for the major federal budget cuts (approximately 500 million per year). These reductions will significantly impact (among others):
– The ETH
– The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), affecting future doctoral candidates, postdocs, and Ambizione fellows
– The students, by affecting the teaching quality and student mobility funding
Today, actionuni and Swiss universities’ mid-level staff associations held their first meeting to address these austerity measures. More information will follow.
Mental health is crucial, especially in the high-pressure environments of higher education. As we do not know exactly how mid-level academic staff in Switzerland is doing and what could be done to improve the situation, we established this survey to uncover challenges and opportunities for improvement both locally and nationally.
Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/SWiMS24
We invite you to share your thoughts and experiences regarding your work environment. Your input is essential for us to work towards enhancing the well-being of members of the Swiss research community.
For any questions or further information about the survey, please contact us at survey@actionuni.ch.
Your survey team, Neele Heiser, Rachel Demolis, Timon Elmer, Zoran Kovacevic and Patricia Eiche
Are you interested in higher education politics in Switzerland? Do you want to interact with
key higher education stakeholders? Do you want to connect with your peers to collaborate
on improving academia? Then you should join actionuni as a Delegate or as a Board member!
We are looking for candidates for the following positions:
You can find more information in the following document: Open positions actionuni 2023
To apply to an open position, please send a short letter of interest and your CV to the email address “president AT actionuni.ch” by October 15
, 2023.
The education/research/innovation dispatch 2025-2028 (ERI dispatch / “BFI Botschaft” in German / “Message FRI” in French / “Messagio ERI 25-28” in Italian) is the central document of the federal ERI policy, which the Federal Council submits to Parliament for approval every four years. The 2025-28 ERI dispatch (French version/German version/Italian version) contains an assessment of the current funding period (2021-24), defines the priorities, objectives and measures for the new period , and requests the necessary funding (“guarantee credits”) for their implementation. For the first time, the Federal Council has decided to publish an early draft and to put it out for consultation for relevant stakeholders to give feedback on it. The consultation procedure was open from June 2nd to September 24th, 2023.
Because the midlevel staff of Swiss higher education institutions is highly impacted by the ERI dispatch, actionuni wrote a response to the consultation, taking position on the issues most relevant to doctoral students, post-docs and non-professorial scientific employees:
You can find our full response below, in French and in English:
Actionuni’s newly-elected co-president Hannah Schoch in conversation with Kadermarkt as to how fighting precariousness and insecurity for mid-level academic staff is a win-win for all.
Actionuni1 thanks all delegates who attended the extraordinary assembly in Bern on 24.06 (protocol shall be soon posted).
Congratulations to our newly elected co-president Hannah Schoch , and new board members Magali Bertrand, Timon Elmer, Neele Heiser and Rachel Demolis, and an official welcome to our delegate to the swiss universities teaching committee Lisa Rieble!
Both Eurodoc and our national organisations (NAs) express their full solidarity with the people in Ukraine and fully condemn Russia’s war. Please find all our respective statements
, calls for action, and policy papers below.
http://eurodoc.net/ukraine/statements-and-responses
Please find the minutes of actionuni’s last general assembly here.