New guest regulations in force from 1 July 2023

Anyone wishing to register a guest at ETH Zurich will in future be able to do this in one of 14 guest categories by means of a new process. This will create more transparency and increase security.

Portraits of various people
Guests must be registered at ETH. From 1 July 2023, there will be a new process for this. (Illustration: Adobe Stock)

Around 4,000 guests come to ETH Zurich each year for collaboration and dialogue. A “guest” is defined as any person who does not work or study at ETH but who nevertheless requires access to the ETH infrastructure – to buildings, systems or data. Such persons need to be registered for this at ETH.

Examples of guests include visiting professors, employees of academic partner institutions and tenants of ETH premises. Not all of them are physically located on the campus. Collaboration is in many cases purely virtual, from Switzerland and abroad.

“So far there have been various ways of registering guests and different offices have been involved. The assignment of authorisations has not been uniformly regulated,” explains Lea Zwimpfer. She is managing a project at HR Operations for the introduction of new guest regulations on behalf of the Executive Board as of 1 July 2023. This will standardise the process for the registration of guests and clearly regulate the assignment of authorisations.

Uniform registration process via ETHIS

Persons need to be registered with ETH in order to obtain access authorisations. This procedure is now to be carried out via a uniform registration process. This is initiated in ETHIS and must be approved by the budget officer. A technical review of the requests is then carried out to check compliance with legal regulations (e.g. export control and provisions under migration law).

Transparent assignment of authorisations

Registered persons must meet the requirements of one of 14 guest categories. Guests receive different authorisations depending on the category. “Only authorisations required for successful collaboration are assigned. This ensures that the relevant provisions are upheld and the risks for ETH due to misuse are minimised,” explains Lea Zwimpfer. For example, this is intended to prevent unauthorised access to laboratories, the misuse of email addresses and unauthorised access to systems and data.

All you need to know about the new guest regulations

More detailed information can be found on the guest regulations website – including the new guest categories and a summary of the key changes.

Should you have any questions, please contact .

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