Mission Statement and Strategy

The Department of Political Science (IPZ) at the University of Zurich was founded in 1971 (history of the department). The IPZ currently (2026) has around 130 employees working in teaching and research at the 20 professorships and research areas.

The IPZ is part of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zurich. In collaboration with the ETH it forms the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS).
 

Research

• pursuing internationally leading research, addressing important questions with innovative theories and methods.
• an international publication culture, prizing publications in internationally leading journals and presses.
• using research findings to inform public debates.
• creating and maintaining a cooperative research culture both within the department and with other institutions.

Teaching

• a broad education of outstanding academic quality, taking into account the breadth and diversity of political science as a discipline in the context of integrated programs with clear profiles.
• the transfer of research into teaching and to research-based learning.
• a strong theoretical and methodological training, enabling students to think independently and to conduct high-quality research.
• MA and PhD programs that are internationally competitive and research-oriented.
• the diversity of our students’ professional careers by including practical elements, soft skills, and internship options in the BA and MA curricula.

Next Generation

• involving students in research as early as possible, starting with the BA thesis as well as with research assistant opportunities.
• the pursuit of an academic career as the main goal of PhD training and Postdoc positions, while recognizing and supporting other career goals.
• supporting PhD students and Postdocs in the pursuit of an academic career by offering the best possible framework conditions for academic research.
• supporting PhD students and Postdocs to publish their work in internationally leading journals and presses.
• the successful training and support of PhD students and Postdocs as the responsibility of the entire department and not only as the task of a single professor or chair.

Diversity

• valuing diversity as a strength for the department.
• identifying and supporting the relevant groups.
• supporting the UZH Gender & Diversity Policy as an integral part of our mission statement. Diversity Policy at the University of Zurich

Outreach

• valuing public outreach and are committed to making scientific findings, as well as the social relevance of its research, visible and understandable beyond academia.
• bearing a responsibility to the public at large by providing a scholarly foundation for self-reflection in society and contributing toward its positive development.

In its mission statement, the Institute for Political Science describes its self-image and the basis of its actions. It provides all members of the Institute with long-term orientation in all decisions, work, and shapes the strategic goals.

The Institute's strategy focuses on the medium-term development of the Institute and is adopted by the Institute's General Assembly. The strategic goals set the framework for operational priorities and measures, which are defined in an action plan, which is continuously evaluated by the Institute's Board of Directors.

The Institute's strategy includes objectives in six thematic areas:

1. transversal research priorities
2. impact on science
3. impact on society
4. study and teaching
5. promotion of young researchers
6. diversity and sustainability

Transversal research priorities

In the years to come, the IPZ will focus on four main research areas: "Politics and Inequality", "Democracy and Democratization", "Digitalization" and "International Cooperation".

In all these research areas, the IPZ will foster its comparative strengths in quantitative methods and in research contributions to Swiss politics as well as to international comparative political science.

The transversal research priorities are profile- and structure-forming for the development of the IPZ as a whole. Projects and initiatives on these topics can be particularly promoted. In addition, specific thematic foci of individual professorships and research areas retain a high priority.

Impact on science

Research at the IPZ should provide answers of high scientific quality to academically and socially relevant questions, and effectively communicate these answers to relevant audiences. Today, the IPZ achieves excellent results in academic research and high visibility of its scientific findings in the international research community. We want to maintain this level of performance and further increase it. Therefore, we want to create and maintain particularly good and attractive conditions for research.

Impact on society

Based on our expertise and the findings of our research, we provide answers to socially relevant questions. We want to communicate these answers to society, so that they can have an impact. Therefore, we understand successful performance also as knowledge transfer and exchange with non-academic actors. We want to intensify the impact of our academic research in improving the impact of our academic research on society and strengthen its visibility. To this end, we support productive interactions with the stakeholders of our research and develop a strategy for using different strategies for the use of different communication channels.

Study and teaching

We want to prepare our students to be independent, competent and responsible work in science, government, business, economy and society. Therefore, we integrate our strengths as a research-intensive institute at all levels into high-quality teaching, in terms of both theory and methods ("Research-based Teaching & Learning").

National and international partnerships, as well as student mobility, strengthen the breadth and depth of the education and are important elements to increase the attractiveness of the IPZ for students and researchers.

Promotion of young scientists

The IPZ promotes young scientists at all qualification levels. Our goal is the creation of excellent working conditions for the next generation of scientists, in particular to facilitate their path into research. The strategy of the IPZ creates harmonized and fair conditions of employment and institutionalizes cornerstones of mentoring and support. The goal is an effective implementation of this strategy at the entire IPZ in the years 2021-2024.

Diversity and sustainability

At the Institute, we strive for a lived culture of diversity and sustainability.

We actively promote an open and diverse institute and aim to increase diversity and awareness of diversity issues. We want students and employees to feeling equally welcome, so that we can benefit from the brightest minds, regardless of their background and orientation.

In terms of sustainability, the IPZ's goal is to reduce avoidable CO2 emissions as far as possible and to compensate for those that cannot be avoided, taking into account other important goals of the institute, such as excellence in research and teaching.

IPZ Impact Award: Cooperation with non-university partners

The IPZ places a high value on public relations. We are committed to making scientific findings and the social relevance of our research visible and understandable beyond the academic communities.

In addition to media work, the most important instrument for this is direct cooperation with non-university actors (stakeholders). The IPZ Impact Award focuses explicitly on this form of outreach.
 

The IPZ Impact Award: Aim, procedure, endowment

The IPZ Impact Award honours cooperation projects with non-university partners. A wide variety of cooperation projects that generate an impact can be proposed, e.g. a classic research cooperation with non-university partners, a special outreach publication, a cooperative conference project, a consultancy or scientific support of a non-university partner, a teaching project, a Capstone, etc. The aim of the IPZ Impact Award is to promote and support the cooperation of non-university partners.

The aim of the IPZ Impact Award is to record and honour all collaborative projects, with an additional award for a particularly promising project. However, all projects are to be recognised at the Institute Conference in November.

A jury consisting of members of the IPZ (staff and students) selects one project each year from the proposals submitted. In addition to a scientific yield, the cooperation project should above all generate a concrete added value of our research for society. The results of the cooperation project should reach their target groups, stimulate innovative types of interactions, processes and discourses or contribute in other ways to solving societal challenges.

The IPZ Impact Award is endowed with CHF 500 and will be awarded at the General Department Assembly in November.
 

Nomination for the IPZ Impact Award

Nomination:  Members of the IPZ can nominate their own projects or those of others. Projects can either be ongoing or have been completed in 2024.
Ongoing projects or projects completed in 2024 that have been nominated last year but did not win the Award can be nominated again.

Selection criteria: scientific quality and originality; return for all partners involved; added value for society.

Deadline: 16.09.2024: (beginning of the autumn semester).

Documents to be submitted: A single document containing the following information:

1. Project title and duration/period
2. Participants on both sides: IPZ (all names) and cooperation partner (organisation, project partner).
3. Short description of the content of the project (max. 300 words)
4. Short description of the cooperation results achieved so far, as well as the added value of the cooperation (max. 300 words)

Members of the selection jury: One member each from the professorial staff, the mid-level faculty, the ATP, the students, as well as external lecturers and/or advanced researchers.

Submission to: sekretariat@ipz.uzh.ch

Nominations last year

1. Daniel KÜBLER, Andri HEIMANN, Robin GUT, Francesco VERI: “Bürgerpanels für mehr Klimaschutz im Kanton Zürich“

2. Raphaela KOTSCH, Katja MICHAELOWA, Axel MICHAELOWA:
   “Designing Effective Regulation for Carbon Markets at the International, National, & Subnational Level”

3. Cindy BISCHOFBERGER, Josephine SMITH, Mario HEDIGER, Julian FERBER, Steven HILL, Karsten DONNAY: “Geschichten der Heimat – Capstone Project”

4. Garret BINDING, Judith SPIRIG, Anja GROB: “Home Economics and Gender Differences in Household Labor”

5. Fabrizio GILARDI, Karsten DONNAY, Maël KUBLI, Natalia UMANSKY: “Stop Hate Speech”

6. Silja HÄUSERMANN, Delia ZOLLINGER, Fabienne EISENRING:
   “UZH Weiterbildung für Lehrer:innen an Maturitätsschulen «National- und Ständeratswahlen“

7. S. HÄUSERMANN, T. ABOU-CHADI, R. BÜRGISSER, M. ENGGIST, R. MITTEREGGER, N. MOSIMANN, D. ZOLLINGER:
   “Wählerschaft und Perspektiven der Sozialdemokratie in der Schweiz“

8. Thomas KURER, Reto BÜRGISSER:
   “White Collar Automation: Digitalization, Labor Market Entry & Political Demands among White Collar Employees in CH”

9. Fabian AIOLFI, Sarah BERKINSHAW, Tabea PALMTAG, Lucas LEEMANN: “Youth Participation”