Guide › ETH Domain
ETH Domain (ETH Board)
The ETH Domain consists of two universities and four federal research institutes, with sites in 13 cantons. Together about 25,000 employees and more than 40,000 students and doctoral candidates (annual report 2025).
ETH Board
Strategic management and supervisory body of the ETH Domain, based on the ETH Act of 1991.
ethrat.chUniversities
ETH Zürich
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which grew out of the Federal Polytechnic School (1855).
ethz.chEPFL
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, the second Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
epfl.chResearch institutes
PSI – Paul Scherrer Institut
About 2,100 employees, more than 780 of them researchers; Villigen AG. Large research facilities such as SLS, SwissFEL and HIPA.
To the PSI section of the Guide · psi.chEmpa
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, just over 1,000 employees.
empa.chEawag
Water research institute of the ETH Domain: how human water use can be reconciled with healthy waters. 559 employees (end of 2025).
eawag.chWSL (incl. SLF Davos)
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, about 600 employees. Headquarters in Birmensdorf; it includes the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos.
wsl.ch · slf.chOther places with ETH links
These are formally not part of the ETH Domain.
ETH Library
Part of ETH Zürich (central university library), not a separate institution of the ETH Domain. Largest public science and technology library in Switzerland, opened on 7 January 1856.
library.ethz.chResearch stations Jungfraujoch and Gornergrat
Operated by the International Foundation High Altitude Research Stations Jungfraujoch and Gornergrat (HFSJG), founded in 1930, office at the University of Bern. Not part of the ETH Domain.
- Jungfraujoch (3500 m): research station, Sphinx Observatory and East Ridge Observatory.
- Gornergrat (3135 m, train from Zermatt): observatory, today mainly used by the “Stellarium Gornergrat” project of the Universities of Bern and Geneva, the HFSJG and the Burgergemeinde Zermatt – for schools and the public, also by remote control.