Brief History of the Department

 

The Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering is among the youngest Departments of ETH Zurich. It is located at the Biopark Rosental in Basel, in the heart of the Biovalley and about 80 kilometers away from the ETH Zurich main building.

In December 2002 representatives from ETH Zurich, the University of Basel, the Federal State Secretariat of Science and Education, and the government of the canton Basel-City decided to establish a federal life science institute as part of ETH Zurich in Basel. Historically, Basel always has been an important center of life science research. The idea of having a federally funded institute complement the already existing research institutions seemed attractive to all stake holders. Moreover, two global players in pharmaceutical research, Novartis AG and F. Hoffmann La-Roche AG supported this endeavor.

In August 2003, the governments of the cantons Basel-City and Basel-Landschaft proposed to support the ‘ETH-Institute’ (at the time it did not have Department status) with 10 million Swiss francs seeding funds. In January 2004 both cantonal parliaments approved this financial support without opposition. With this remarkable commitment by the two cantons, the main hurdle for initiating the project «ETH Basel» was overcome.

Around the same time, in October 2003, a high-profile group of international experts assessed and then endorsed the «Systems Biology Switzerland» concept, recommending that it be given highest priority. Thereby, the scientific, political, and economic foundations were laid.

In 2004 and 2005 broad support for promoting systems biology research came from various academic and political groups. This strengthened the efforts to develop research centers for this new type of life science research, one of which was the Center of Biosystems Science and Engineering at the Biopark Rosental in Basel. This center was then promoted to a fully-fledged Department of ETH Zurich on January 1, 2007.

In 2007 the federal government decided to specifically fund the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering with CHF 100 million for a period of four years (2008-2011). This further fueled the development of the Department within ETH and enabled significant expansion. It is planned to have fifteen professorships in the Department funded by ETH plus further professorships that may be funded by other parties. The first endowment for an externally funded professorship has been obtained in 2010.

Currently, the Department includes 13 professors and the respective research groups with more than 200 employees. Moreover, four spin-off companies have already been founded in the department between 2008 and 2011.