Innovation Catalyst – HSG ETH Student Project House – St. Gallen

At the Student Project House (SPH) we inspire and empower students to cultivate a maker and innovator mindset. We believe that by developing their own projects, students learn important competencies for their future. This is why we’ve created an ecosystem to inspire students (Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral students) to get started and explore the real need behind their idea.

Our interdisciplinary team of thirty people provides students who want to pursue extracurricular projects of various types and scales with a comprehensive range of support. On the one hand, we design and manage facilities like co-working, ideation, and event spaces as well as a makerspace that gives students access to the tools and equipment they need to prototype. On the other hand, we support project teams with personal coaching, workshops, and a diverse expert network. We want to accompany students on their journey by inspiring them to get started, to seek diverse views, to explore the real need behind an idea, to work as a team, to think big, to fail, to pivot, and to keep overcoming obstacles they encounter on the way.

Our first location was established at ETH Zurich. As we scale and expand beyond our original base, we are launching a second location in St. Gallen in collaboration with the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and START Foundation. We are creating a sister organisation in the spirit of SPH in Zurich, with a large focus on building a community of ETH and HSG students who learn from each other through peer-to-peer learning.

We’re now looking for an Innovation Catalyst to join our team and support the build-up of the HSG ETH SPH. This is a unique opportunity to help build a new organisation and shape its culture, offers and community from the ground up.

Application Deadline: please apply before Thursday, 13th of August, 9am.  

Work location: Primarily based in our coworking space in St. Gallen, with an expected on-site presence of around four days per week. Regular home office of approximately one day per week is possible, with occasional work from Zurich.

Project background

You’ll work in one of the most inspiring spaces in St.Gallen, surrounded by whiteboards, ideation equipment, colourful furniture, and creative students. We’re located at the START Campus, 5 minutes away from both St.Gallen station and HSG.

We work in the same open space as our project teams and meet with everyone at eye level. The individuals we work with are from a diverse range of backgrounds and study disciplines, which is why we communicate in English. As the projects we support are extracurricular, most of our offers take place in the late afternoon, in the evening, and occasionally at weekends. 

We take an agile approach to conceptualizing and delivering our offer and allocate our capacity flexibly to the most important tasks. Hereby, teamwork is one of our key values.

You’ll join a core team of 2–3 people shaping, building and scaling our second location in St. Gallen. Working closely with the Head of HSG ETH SPH, you’ll help develop the location, support its operations and coach student project teams.

We already have a strong waiting list of interested users and can build on ten years of experience from our Zurich location—knowledge that has been tested, refined and validated over time.

The projects you’ll support are highly diverse in topic, stage, intensity and ambition. Some are entrepreneurial, while others focus on initiatives such as founding an NGO or student association, developing a research or creative project, or participating in a university competition.

Job description

Together, we support students in turning early-stage ideas into meaningful projects while developing their innovation skills and personal growth. As an Innovation Catalyst, you will be responsible for:

• Coaching: You’ll coach early-stage projects from diverse backgrounds. You’ll help them reflect, ask insightful questions, and support them in pinning down their next steps, without taking on a leadership role.
• Conceptualizing and Managing: You’ll develop learning journeys and service offers to support our students from start to finish. This includes conceptualizing, testing, and building end-to-end processes, as well as documenting, running, continuously improving, tracking, and scaling these offers. You will build on existing ETH SPH structures and learnings rather than start from scratch.
• Facilitating: You’ll design, host and facilitate community formats, events and peer-to-peer exchange that connect and activate students and their projects.
• Driving and Representing: You’ll lead key internal initiatives aligned with SPH’s mission, represent SPH with senior stakeholders, and foster partnerships and collaboration within the team and across the wider ecosystem.

Profile

We need your energy and drive to support our projects and help build, develop and scale our new location and offers from the ground up!

• You have experience in starting and implementing your own projects (start-up, entrepreneurship project, innovation project, etc.). You’ve failed, learned from it, and tried again.
• You bring in methodological skills that are valuable to coach early-stage projects in the field of innovation (prototyping, agile development, design thinking, project management, product development, lean startup, business models, team dynamics, etc.).
• You have a proven track record of independently designing, initiating and managing complex projects. You can create clear, efficient and scalable services and processes designed to support more than 300 project teams per year.
• You enjoy working with people in a dynamic, fast-paced environment and are passionate about helping students develop a Maker-Innovator Mindset.
• You feel comfortable speaking to groups of students and senior stakeholders, as well as hosting and facilitating community events.
• You have a master’s degree or an equivalent qualification from a recognized higher-level institution.
• You have at least 3 years of work experience in the field of innovation, coaching, your own startup, or a similar field.
• Ideally, you have experience in community building, software or product development, or specialist knowledge in an area such as AI, robotics or digital technologies.

A note: research indicates that women and individuals from marginalized groups tend to apply only when they meet all of the criteria. If you believe you’re qualified, but don’t necessarily check every box, please submit an application.

We offer

You will be employed by ETH Zurich and report to the Head of HSG ETH SPH. We offer a 1-year contract with the possibility and intention to prolong the contract (fixed-term contracts are standard at ETH).

The funding and pilot are set to last 2 years and it is intended to proceed thereafter if the pilot is successful and if the funding is secured.

This is a unique opportunity to build and shape a new location from the ground up, with high autonomy and direct impact on the future of education at HSG and ETH Zurich.

We believe in personal growth. For that we do regular team feedback sessions and value everyone's opinion.

Working, teaching and research at ETH Zurich

We value diversity and sustainability

In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish. Sustainability is a core value for us – we are consistently working towards a climate-neutral future.

Curious? So are we.

We’d love to get to know you! Please record a 1-2 minute video clip introducing yourself and telling us what you want to bring to HSG ETH SPH. We're not looking for perfect video production skills - just use your smartphone, be yourself, and don't worry about editing the clip. We want to meet the real you! Upload the video on a platform of your choice (Dropbox, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, ...) and include the URL link in your cover letter.

We look forward to receiving your online application with the following documents:

• Cover letter, including the URL link to your video clip
• CV

Application Deadline: please apply before Thursday, 13th of August, 9am.  

Please note that we can only accept applications submitted through the ETH online application portal and applications that contain all required documents (cover letter, video, CV). Applications via email or by post will not be considered.

Further information about the ETH Student Project House can be found on our website, on Instagram, and on LinkedIn.

About ETH Zürich

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in

science and technology. We are renowned for our excellent education,

cutting-edge fundamental research and direct transfer of new knowledge

into society. Over 30,000 people from more than 120 countries find our

university to be a place that promotes independent thinking and an

environment that inspires excellence. Located in the heart of Europe,

yet forging connections all over the world, we work together to

develop solutions for the global challenges of today and tomorrow.