Digitalisation Initiative

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The Digitalisation Initiative (DIZH) aims to promote collaboration between Zurich’s universities in the area of digitalisation and thereby strengthen Zurich as a research and business location. A total of CHF 300 million is available to PH Zurich, the University of Zurich, ZHAW and ZHdK. Around CHF 192 million is coming from the universities’ budgets, with the canton contributing an additional CHF 108 million. The funds will finance projects and activities from 2020 to 2029.

The focus of the DIZH is not on technological development, but rather the social, economic, legal and cultural opportunities and challenges of digitalisation – aspects that have not yet been addressed to the same extent by the four universities, but which are of considerable importance to society. The DIZH therefore wants both to initiate technological innovations, and to research and shape the social impact of digitalisation.

Three funding programmes and networking

The DIZH aims to strengthen the competitiveness of the canton of Zurich as a location for research, development and business. To this end, it is operating three funding programmes: a research cluster, an innovation programme and an education promotion programme.

The aim of the DIZH’s research cluster is to promote interdisciplinary and inter-university research in the field of digitalisation. The partner universities’ different competencies are interlinked in a way that promotes new perspectives on digitalisation issues. The research cluster is a coordinated network consisting of researchers from Zurich universities and external project partners in the form of professorships, interdisciplinary professorships, interdisciplinary postdocs, fellows and doctoral programmes. Corresponding interdisciplinary professorships can be found at PH Zurich in the Centre for Education and Digital Transformation.

The innovation programme is a central tool of the DIZH. Through various innovation projects by Zurich’s universities along with the private and public sectors, research findings are brought closer to practice and made available. Conversely, the needs and experiences of the application partners flow into science. Research grants are regularly announced as part of the innovation programme.

The programme for education promotion supports cooperation between Zurich’s universities in order to initiate innovative developments in the areas of teaching, education and digitalisation. This creates necessary foundations for teaching that benefits from the potential of digital transformation. At the same time, the programme promotes educational initiatives that concern not only academic professions, but the entire professional spectrum.

The DIZH also contributes to science and society networking by organising various events and discussion platforms on research projects of the four universities in the field of digitalisation.