Markus Meier Fund

• Application form
• Candidate letter, including information regarding educational and professional goals and the supporting documentation regarding the need for financial support:
  
  
  • Parent's tax returns for the previous year, including final federal, state and local tax assessments
  • Copy of the state decision regarding scholarships for the respective academic year or semester
  • Copy of decision for any other organizations regarding scholarships
  • Copy of loan agreements
  • Copy of any orphan or partial orphan income or AHV / IV children's income
  • Evidence of travel costs (when the home town is outside the city of Zurich)
• Transcript of academic record from the bachelor studies. For non-ETH graduates, their high qualification must be demonstrated through e.g. class ranking, average grade, standard variance.
• Non-ETH graduates must also include 2 reference letters from professors who taught in their bachelor program.

The application for a Master scholarship must be submitted to the D-MAVT Student administration by 15 April. The Master program must be entered the following Fall semester. Please fill in the candidate application form.

A maximum of 3 scholarships will be awarded each year.

In general, the scholarships will be awarded for three semesters (the expected time to complete classroom studies in the Masters program). Graduates of technical colleges who must fulfill additional requirements will be awarded a four-semester scholarship.

The scholarships will not be paid during exchange semesters at other universities or for industry internships.

The maximum scholarship per semester (6 months) is CHF 9,000.

Each semester, the fellows must present evidence to the Student administration that they have passed all performance assessments and received the respective credit points.

This scholarship may not be awarded if another scholarship is being paid.

The Student administration sorts the applicants according to Master program and presents them to the respective boards of admission. The admission committees put forward candidates.

Out of the collected candidates, an internal D- MAVT jury examines the best candidates and, based on the available funds, chooses those candidates to receive the scholarships.

The Director of Studies informs the applicants of the final decision.

The scholarships are paid at the beginning of each semester by the Scholarship Office of the ETH Zurich. For those fellows who must complete additional prerequisites of more than 30 credit points, the scholarship will be paid only after completion of one-third of the requirements.

The payment of scholarships will end if the required performance in a Master program has not been achieved.

Markus Meier was born in 1955 and grew up in Solothurn.

After completinghis vocational training as a technical draftsman at Scintilla AG in Solothurn, he obtained his Swiss Matura (high school diploma). Subsequently, he pursued a degree in mechanical engineering and completed his doctoral studies at ETH Zurich in Forming Technology.

He gained industry experience as technical manager at Robitron AG, Schaffhausen, later assuming the role of managing director. His focus there was on industrial automation, specifically compact disc production in clean room conditions. in 1990, he moved to Soudronic Neftenbach AG as managing director. The company made a name for itself by producing high standard machines and production plants for welding technology in the auto industry. New technologies named "tailored blanks" were patented and successfully introduced in the global market.

Since April 1996, Markus Meier has been a full professor for product development at ETH Zurich in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering.

Research and Teaching

His research focused on product innovation processes – in the process, methods and application of communication and visualization technologies regarding digital product representation and collaborative development. This was always in close cooperation with industry.

In his teaching, he encouraged his engineering students to demonstrate innovative thinking and action, combined with interdisciplinary teamwork, sharing his deep, practical knowledge of production processes. The student innovation projects were acknowledged as a "successful best practice" in an international benchmark.

As Director of Studies at D-MAVT and member of the academic commission, he committed an extraordinary level of effort to academic issues. Students identified him as a role model, and he was a principle figure driving reforms and improvements in teaching, whereby the Bologna Reform was successfully implemented ahead of schedule. He also established interdisciplinary contact with other universities and technical colleges, implementing overarching courses.

Given his industrial experience, he served as an ideal link for everyone – external stakeholders, staff and students – between politics, industry and universities. He was appointed to over 20 commissions and working groups and founded many spin-off companies. His performance was recognized through many academic distinctions in Switzerland and abroad.

Professor Markus Meier died in an accident on 17 April 2005.