Prof. Dr. Michael Ambühl becomes professor emeritus and retires as Director of the SSPG
After nine years as ETH Professor of Negotiation and Conflict Management, Prof. Dr. Michael Ambühl, who founded and headed the ETH Swiss School of Public Governance (SSPG) since 2016, will become professor emeritus as of February 2022.
Prof. Dr. Michael Ambühl becomes professor emeritus and retires as Director of the ETH Swiss School of Public Governance
After nine years as ETH Professor of Negotiation and Conflict Management, Prof. Dr. Michael Ambühl, who founded and headed the ETH Swiss School of Public Governance (SSPG) since 2016, will become professor emeritus as of February 2022.
Prof. Dr. Michael Ambühl was Professor of Negotiation and Conflict Management at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics of ETH Zurich and the Director of the Swiss School of Public Governance, which he founded in 2016.
The remarkable career of Professor Michael Ambühl was shaped primarily by two institutions: ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). As former Swiss State Secretary, he was determined to translate practice into theory during his teaching and research at ETH Zurich.
Professor Ambühl studied applied mathematics and management science at ETH and graduated as Dr. sc. techn. ETH. Following his work as academic assistant, senior assistant and lecturer in the Economics Faculty of the University of Zurich, Michael Ambühl became a member of the diplomatic service of the Swiss Foreign Ministry in 1982.
Following engagements in Kinshasa, Bern, and as Head of the Economics Division of the Embassy in New Dehli and member of the negotiation team "Bilateral I Agreements between Switzerland and the EU" in Brussels, he was promoted to Ambassador in 1999, then State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 2005, and State Secretary in the Finance Ministry in 2010. Professor Ambühl was nominated full Professor of Negotiation and Conflict Management at ETH Zurich in summer 2013.
In his different functions he was a member of the “Swiss-EU Bilateral I”- negotiation team, he led the negotiations of the “Swiss-EU Bilateral II”- agreements (including Schengen), he was facilitator of the Geneva Iran-P5+1 talks, and in the Armenia-Turkey Protocols, signed in Zurich in 2009. He negotiated the Swiss-US UBS-deal, the Tax treaty Switzerland-UK & Austria, the Swiss-US FATCA Agreement and the Swiss-US Tax deal. From 2000 to 2009, Michael Ambühl lectured in the Law Faculty of the University of Zurich, and since 2010 he has been a permanent guest of honour at the University of Zurich.
Professor Ambühl’s teaching and research at ETH Zurich focused on the theoretical background of negotiation engineering, different technical and applied negotiation schools of thought, mediation and conflict management, with the practical appreciation of negotiation based on his mathematical background and more than 30 years of experience as a Swiss diplomat and negotiator.
The following article of ETH News looks back at the career of Professor Ambühl and his various achievements during his time at ETH Zurich.