Training and further education
As a research institute concentrating on natural sciences and asserting that it is performing leading international research, it is essential for PSI to provide an innovative infrastructure and adequate material resources to enable this. Nevertheless, it is our staff the “brains behind the machines” who ensure our success.
For us, our main asset is the outstanding skills, experience and motivation of our staff. This is why education is an extremely important issue for us.
The interest in scientific or technical education must be awakened at an early stage. The PSI (together with the other research institutes of the ETH Domain EMPA, EAWAG and WSL) promotes young talents also through common projects with the Swiss Youth research foundation "Schweizer Jugend forscht" and is a sponsor of this foundation.
It is possible for young scientists to carry out their university thesis work in the natural sciences at one of the large-scale research facilities at PSI, where supervision is available at Bachelor's, Master's, Diploma and Doctoral levels.
Any institute aiming to undertake top-level research needs staff with high intelligence – and not just where the actual research questions are concerned. It can only function adequately with top-class technical staff.
School classes can carry out their own experiments for a whole day at the iLab laboratory, where the experiments are based on exactly the same principles as those at the large PSI facilities.
PSI provides supervision for practical high-school matriculation projects. Interested students must submit a plan of work, which will then compete with other submitted applications.
The PSI Reactor School is a Higher College of Technology, awarding a Federally-recognised Swiss qualification as a Diplom-Techniker HF (State-Certified Engineer). Its main field of activity is in the basic theoretical training of licensed operating personnel for nuclear power stations.
The Radiation Protection School at PSI acts on behalf of various Federal authorities in Switzerland, training a wide variety of occupational groups in the responsible handling of ionising radiation.
