ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specializing in science and technology. It is renowned for its excellent education, its cutting-edge research, and its efforts to put new knowledge and innovations directly into practice.

ETH Zurich | Space

 with its academic director 

boosts space activities to establish ETH Zurich as the leading university in space research, education and entrepreneurship within Europe and beyond.

One pillar of ETH Zurich I Space is to grow space research activities and space missions at ETH Zurich, often in collaboration with other academic institutions, industrial partners, start-ups, agencies, etc. To do so, ETH Zurich I Space has created Innovation and Project Hubs as well as other supporting activities for researchers at ETH and beyond. The Innovation Hub serves as a creative incubation for new space-related ideas and drives experimentation and rapid prototyping to facilitate vast validation (or disproof) of new, high-risk, and potentially high-reward concepts. The Project Hub provides centralized expertise in project management, space systems engineering, and selected engineering expertise to support space projects and space missions in both traditional and more modern setups and partnerships. Supporting activities involve both communication to researchers about opportunities by the European Space Agency, and Swiss initiatives focused on space. It also seeks to connect researchers with opportunities enabled by commercial collaborations and/or support by non-traditional resources.

For this, ETH Zurich I Space is searching a

Director Space Research Initiatives

.

Starting date: asap.

This Director position oversees the Project and Innovation Hubs, ensures interdisciplinary collaboration and guides the development of projects and ideas initiated by ETH researchers (or the Innovation Hub) through their lifecycle. This role needs to facilitate smooth transitions between ideas, proposal preparation, mission development, and operations, while promoting synergies across these phases. Additionally, the Director actively engages with ETH researchers to promote space as a strategic research field, encouraging faculty participation in space-related activities. The role also supports the strategic integration of space data applications into ETH research, enabling innovative uses of space data across disciplines. And the Director needs to foster interactions and collaboration between the Innovation and Project Hubs, ensuring coordination, guiding projects into the right of the two hubs, and supporting idea exchange.

Tasks:

• Successfully implements and drives success of the Project and Innovation Hubs
• Continuously evaluates and develops the Project and Innovation Hubs, incl. Development of a process to track the success and impact of the two initiatives, and regular evaluation by ETH researchers as well as external stakeholders
• Manages a central pool of space experts (project managers, systems engineers, etc.) including the allocation process of these resources on different space-related projects at ETH (Project Hub) and idea exploration and development, rapid prototyping and validation efforts (Innovation Hub). Most space experts are likely to work on more than one project at a time.
• Sets up and manages space-related administrative support for ETH researchers (e.g. Proposal writing, processing invoices, resolving issues)
• Organizes the ETH Zurich internal “marketing” of the Project and Innovation Hubs amongst researchers, professors and labs across different departments
• Fosters collaborations with other academic partners, industrial companies, and agencies – in Switzerland, Europe and worldwide
• Maintains an academic and industry network in Switzerland and beyond, to understand the evolving needs of space-related companies
• Contributes to the fundraising of third-party money for the Project and Innovation Hubs
• Regularly exchanges with similar units at other universities worldwide, to benchmark best practices

Professional experience

• Doctoral degree in a natural science or engineering discipline
• Several years of experience in space-related research and space projects in academia, and/or agency, and/or comparable experience in space-related industry
• Management experience in a complex and larger project or program, e.g. As PI/Co-PI, project manager
• Significant personal experience in space hardware design and construction
• Network to key space players in Europe and across the world (e.g. Agencies, academic institutions, industry)

Social and methodological competencies

• Established record of proficient manager and leader
• Record of strong teamwork in diverse teams
• Analytical thinking and fostering innovative approaches
• Very good communication in diverse environments (academia, industry, agencies) and across hierarchies

Technical knowledge and expertise

• Expert-level knowledge and experience in space-related science or engineering
• Excellent spoken and written English is required. Knowledge of German is an asset

• A vision and aspiration to become the leading university in Europe as to space related research (education and entrepreneurship)
• A dynamic, international, and interdisciplinary work environment at one of the leading technical universities in the world
• A motivated team of people sharing a passion for space and the goal to strengthen and enhance space activities at ETH Zurich

In line with

our values

, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our

Equal Opportunities and Diversity website

to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish.

We look forward to receiving your application with:

• A motivation letter
• Your CV
• A short video of yourself explaining your motivation. A professionally produced video is not required; a recording using your smartphone will suffice. Upload the video (max. 1.5 minutes) on a platform of your choice (Dropbox, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, ...) and include the URL link in your motivation letter)
• Job references and diplomas

website 

)

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