Since 2020, the Canton of Zurich and its four universities have been jointly investing in digital transformation. What is being created? Our Data Stories provide answers.
An initiative that mobilises over 300 million Swiss francs, runs for ten years and connects four universities leaves its mark. But impact is difficult to summarise in a single sentence. It shows itself in publications and laboratories, in new teaching formats and partnerships with companies and municipalities, and in networks that will endure beyond the initiative’s duration.
This is precisely what the DIZH Data Stories aim to make visible. Rather than waiting for final reports, we collect data on an ongoing basis and process it as soon as it is available in meaningful quantities. Each Data Story addresses a specific question: Where are the funds going? What is being published? Who benefits? The answers are data presented with context, with interpretation, and with the ambition to show honestly what we know and what remains open.
Data Story: Use of the Special Credit
Which programs have drawn which funds so far? What third-party funding has been secured by the universities?
How do you measure whether an investment in the digital future is working? A first answer is provided by the figures on the special credit.
With the cantonal council resolution (KRB 5523) approving a framework credit for the Digitalization Initiative of the Zurich Higher Education Institutions (DIZH), requirements were also set for the universities’ own contributions and the use of funds. In addition to the 108.3 million francs provided by the canton as a special credit for the DIZH, the four universities are required to contribute own resources amounting to 191.7 million francs.
The funds flow into three areas: research cluster, innovation program and education program. In two of these three areas, the targets have already been exceeded at the halfway point – owing to the universities’ higher own contributions.
Example: Research Cluster
Within the research cluster, the planned total expenditure of 185 million francs has already been exceeded at the halfway point of the DIZH’s duration. The research strength of UZH and the successful acquisition of third-party funding mentioned above are the main reasons for this. It can therefore be anticipated that the professorships and research centres newly established or supported by the DIZH – which will largely be continued by the universities – will continue to generate positive impact beyond 2029, when the special credit will no longer be available.