About AMP
AMP is an abbreviation for Akademischer Mittelbau am Physikdepartement. AMP is the association of non-faculty scientific staff at the department of physics at ETH Zurich. We represent all non-faculty scientists of our department.
Membership
AMP membership is coupled to an AVETH membership. Joining AMP/AVETH gives you voting rights in the general assemblies of both associations and costs 4CHF per month. Most of our events are open to all members of D-PHYS. In some of our events, participants benefit from a small financial contribution such as a payed lunch or part of the price of a ticket. In those cases AMP mebership might be necessary to participate.
So don't hesitate and become an AMP-member now!
AMP (Akademischer Mittelbau am Physikdepartement der ETH Zürich) is the association of the non-faculty scientific staff at the Department of Physics of ETH Zurich. As a contact point for issues concerning graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, and other research fellows, AMP represents their interests within the department and towards external parties. To this end, we are actively involved in different committees of the department, participating in structural and organizational improvement of research, teaching, and education. We support the flow of information between different groups of the department and inside our association. We additionally foster the scientific and social exchange among the members of the department. As a subsection of AVETH (Akademische Vereinigung des Mittelbaus der ETH Zürich), AMP brings forward ETH-wide concerns.
AMP was founded in 2007 as a branch of the umbrella organization AVETH (Akademische Vereinigung des Mittelbaus der ETH Zürich). The association grew in the recent years and currently involves about 250 active members out of 400 non-faculty scientific staff. The board plans, organizes, and implements the different activities of AMP. Moreover, AMP is represented in various political committees among which are the departmental conference (DK, 7 deputies), the Ausschuss (1 deputy), and the teaching commission (UK, 3 deputies). All of these positions are voted upon every year during the AMP general assembly.
The association is financed via a monthly fee of the members, equally shared between AVETH and AMP. In addition to our budget of about 6000 CHF/y, larger spare-time events (e.g. soccer tournament, excursions) are co-financed by a contribution of the participants such that our yearly turnover reaches about 8000 CHF.
AMP is embedded in a tight network of ETH associations. We enjoy fruitful exchange and collaboration with AVETH and its subsections from other departments. Furthermore, we maintain an intense relationship with the student organization of the physics and mathematics departments (VMP) and the Alumni organizations (ETH Alumni, MathPhys Alumni), which ensures a continuity of our structure and provides helpful contacts outside academia.
In recent years, AMP contributed to a variety of topics, ranging from teaching improvement (courses for teaching assistants, laboratory courses) and a welcome program (introduction day for new graduate students, information flyer) to special lectures about intellectual property and scientific misconduct. To gain insight into current research performed by our next-door colleagues, AMP organizes several colloquia and guided laboratory tours.
For scientists planning to leave academia, AMP facilitates the contact with companies and the access to a network in the private sector. In collaboration with the Alumni association, we invite former physicists to present their career path outside the academic world. Likewise, half- or full-day excursions are organized to visit companies employing physicists of different areas. Among others, we visited ABB Baden, IBM Rüschlikon, CSEM Neuchâtel, and Sensirion.
Last but not least, AMP improves the scientific and social interactions with a diversified palette of spare-time activities, ranging from ski-days to paintball and various other events such as pubquizzes. The two highlights every year are the soccer tournament Boltzmann Cup and the AMP Barbecue.
You can download our official bylaws Download here (de) and an unofficial translated version Download here (PDF, 28 KB) (en).