Empa Reviews

Pros

- Friendly and competent colleagues - cheap canteen and accomodation - good facilities - close to Zürich centre and airport - great salary It's definitely a place where one would want to work for long, but it's not possible.

Cons

- not many opportunities for women or foreigners, unless they are well connected: you can be a good scientist with good cv, but you will see many Swiss who do nothing at all getting a permanent position while you have to leave. - limited time there (max 5 years), after which you can be kicked out - very few chances for contract extension or getting a permanent position, subject to the board's policy for future... research.

Advice to Management

Think less about bs (integrate research into UN objectives, policy for the next years, merging with other institutions and consequences of the name change) and let people have a stable job to develop ideas and research.

Pros

- Collaborative community -Great people -Facilities - Cheap rent ( in St. Gallen) -Access to ETHZ and or EPFL -View and collaborations over great variety of topics (from fibers to implants and solar cells)

Cons

- A bit isolated - no cafeteria with lunch menu

Advice to Management

Make Empa lean more towards an academic workstyle for PhD students and non permanent stuff (more flexible effective working hours, higher caliber invited speakers more regularly). Try to attract high achieving Post Docs. Try to regroup the efforts of the institute behind more ambitious goals, moonshots !

Pros

scientific freedom (as long as project-related tasks allow this)

Cons

Governmental Origanisation with its (administrative) rules

Pros

Good atmosphere, high salary, friendly people

Cons

no permanent positions available, otherwise its a good place to work

Pros

Nice, comfortable and good spirit. the work environment is good.

Cons

It is mainly an education institution, which means there are not many permanent positions.

Advice to Management

Good work

Pros

good salary, professional laboratories, excellent staff, high education

Cons

expensive cost of living (accommodation, food, travelling)

Pros

Financially good, but this is good in any position in switzerland so this place doesnt really have any pros because the cons are too much to neglect

Cons

-- No career prospects for future, the research they do are archaic and most researchers are pretending to do research. They want to keep their position and hire and fire all the time. -- Too laid back, they are not working at all. --Run by italian mafia like the title suggests. Too much hierarchy and they will nullify your contract any time, no trust and they dont care about temporary staff even if you have... a postdoc/phd contract, avoid empa st gallen and lab 401, staff there are completely unreliable and dishonest and they will cheat you anytime. It is full of italian cheating and dishonest unethical team members. -- Too much risk of losing your job even if you have a phd or researcher contract. AVOID! -- They dont help you succeed at all in empa or outside empa in future and will snatch your work, funds everything from you. AVOID!

Advice to Management

stop pretending you are doing science or you care about staff

Pros

Flexible working hour Free of working on independent project Good holidays Close to industries

Cons

It is not very women freindly. My department had very few women and socially is can be very hard to integrate. the work atmosphere is not very international either. The overall attitude towards international employees is quite cold which can be a problem when it comes to integrating and networking. Being in several european instituions in the past, this has been my first experience in this reagrd.