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“The concept for the new Technical University in Linz contains essential suggestions from Univ.-Prof. Bruno Buchberger, the founder and long-time director of the Hagenberg software park with its affiliated university of applied sciences, and must be given full support,” said IWS President Christoph Leitl on Monday.
The head of the concept group, Gerhard Eschelbeck, and his project team have succeeded in doing a good job. The project creates all the prerequisites for further strengthening the core competencies of the province of Upper Austria in the areas of education, innovation and creativity in order to meet future challenges in national and international competition.
Leitl emphasizes that the task now is to join forces and implement the concept with full force. According to the plan, the new TU will start operations as early as next year. The mayor of Steyr, Markus Vogl (SPÖ), regrets that the university is being built in Linz and not in Steyr, but he hopes that Steyr will at least remain in the running as the location of a TU branch office.
“We will try everything to ensure that Steyr becomes part of the new TU with a relocated research center. We have many innovative companies here in Steyr that are active in research at the highest level and could therefore make an important contribution to the new TU project,” says Vogl.
Skepticism at the ÖH
Opposition to the project comes from the student body, more precisely from the red-green federal leadership. For ÖH boss Sara Velic (VSStÖ), the founding is “a bad joke”. The plans would completely ignore basic research and aim only to boost the economy.
“The economization of education is taken to the extreme here. Free research and teaching are becoming impossible!” believes Velic. The ÖH also has major concerns about the planned organizational structure and the legal basis. The new university would have its own law.
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