History

• In June 1991, the ETH point of contact for women was created. It was renamed to Office of Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in October 1993. Since 2008, it has been offering its services under the name of Equal! – Office of Equal Opportunities for Women and Men.

• A program with a large number of measures for the advancement of women at ETH (Förderungsprogramm 1996–1999) was compiled by Silvia Wyler, ETH’s first equal opportunity commissioner (75 %), and Professor Katharina von Salis (counselor, 25 %) in collaboration with different internal working groups.

• From August 2000 to December 2005, Brigitte Manz-Brunner and Carla Zingg headed the Office of Equal Opportunities on a job sharing basis.

• Between May 2006 and August 2008, Dr. Luzia Lehmann and Carla Zingg led the efforts in the area of equal opportunities at ETH.

• In 2007, Katharina von Salis was awarded the Dr. Ida Somazzi prize in recognition of her great commitment to the advancement of women at ETH Zurich and other Swiss universities. Elisabeth Maurer, our colleague from the University of Zurich, held the Laudatory speech (PDF, in German only).
  

• Since the end of 2007, the Office of Equal Opportunities has been affiliated to the ETH president’s office.

• Since the end of 2008, Equal has been chaired by Professor Renate Schubert, the ETH president’s Delegate for Equal Opportunities.