The Ministry of Education will send a draft law for review, said Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Upper Austria. Governor Thomas Stelzer (both ÖVP) after a meeting on Tuesday. The financing is regulated in a 15a agreement. The Council of Ministers is expected to make a corresponding decision on Wednesday.
Accordingly, 45 million euros are earmarked for the start-up phase. The budget of the new university should then increase gradually and amount to at least 150 million euros by the time the project is fully expanded in 2036, it was said after the meeting. The first construction steps are planned for this year, the TU is scheduled to open its doors in 2023/24, and full study operations are expected to start in 2024/25. When fully developed, 5,000 students will learn here. It has been clear for some time that the two universities on the campus of the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) will move closer together, but will be established side by side as independent universities.
“The new Technical University of Linz enables students to deal with the topic of digitization in more depth and in an interdisciplinary manner,” says Nehammer, who also sees the TU Linz as a “hub between society, business and industry”, from which Austria as a whole benefits.
For Polaschek, the TU is “a joint effort and one of the most important science-political development projects in recent years. This will expand our excellent university landscape and put a further focus on the future topic of digitization.” And Stelzer wants to “not only set new international standards in teaching and research” with the TU. It should “also bring great added value for society as a whole: from securing the location and jobs to solving the central challenges of our time such as climate change.”
Source: Nachrichten
