From the first viewing of a live, shared university campus for Med Uni Graz in 2004 to the opening of the first module in 2017 and the official full campus opening ceremony in May 2023, nearly 18 years of financing, design and construction negotiations will be have passed. The Med Uni Graz campus, built by Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft mbH (BIG), represents today an impressive symbol of the dynamic development of the Medical University of Graz and is the place of work and study for around 2,500 employees and almost 5,000 students.
Another visible sign of Med Uni Graz’s very successful path is the series of excellent placings in the internationally renowned Times Higher Education university ranking. As one of two universities in Austria, Med Uni Graz entered the top 200 universities in the world for the first time last year (196th place). To date, it has been announced that Med Uni Graz has climbed another 28 places in the rankings this year and can expect a very good 168th place. This means that Med Uni Graz is once again the second best ranked university in Austria and at the same time the best medical university in Austria. Rector Hellmut Samonigg is grateful for this remarkable success and sees it as a motivating signal to continue on the path taken.
Two soccer fields for research and spaces for innovative learning
As often happens, it all started in 2004 with an idea: Hellmut Samonigg, then Vice Rector for Strategy and Innovation at Med Uni Graz, had the vision of a modular, dynamic, coherent and communicative campus for the university. of which he not only managed to successfully convince the university management, but above all the political decision-makers. After the 2010 architectural competition, from which Riegler Riewe Architects emerged as the winner, and the approval of the project, the construction of module 1 could begin in 2013, inaugurated in 2017. In the same year the design approval was given for Module 2 and construction started in 2019.
After taking office in the summer and autumn of this year, almost all of the Med Uni Graz facilities are now located on the new campus. Some units will follow from the beginning of 2023. In total, the Republic of Austria invested around half a billion euros to carry out the overall project. To this end, employees and students now have more than 46,000 square meters (usable space) of high-quality rooms available. For scientists only, there are laboratory areas with a total size of over two football fields for first-rate biomedical research, complemented by large classrooms, seminar rooms and special teaching areas for student training. A canteen, a cafeteria, service facilities and many places to study, relax and communicate make the campus perfect.
Interaction of infrastructures and innovative spirit as a model of success
The availability of this structural infrastructure of the Medical University of Graz, recognized throughout Europe, is already paying off impressively in terms of performance. Although only half of the campus has been available to researchers and teachers in the past four years, Med Uni Graz was able to rank among the world’s top 200 universities for the first time last year in THE World University Ranking, one of the most renowned international university rankings. Med Uni Graz has a special reason to be happy this year. With 168th place worldwide, the university has practically earned recognition and thus managed to significantly improve the excellent result of the year. But what is the reason for this success?
State-of-the-art research portfolio
The number of high-level scientific publications has continuously increased and quadrupled since the university was founded. After a huge increase over the past three years, the provisional peak was reached last year. In addition to the new research buildings, a state-of-the-art equipment infrastructure is essential for research: thanks to the Med Uni infrastructure roadmap, synergies can be optimally exploited and high-tech special equipment can be financed.
In research, Med Uni Graz also shines in the very successful acquisition of third-party funds. In the last year alone, more than € 67 million of funds have been raised for basic and contract research. With a total of five ongoing major projects from the Australian Science Fund (FWF) (a special research area and four doctoral programs) or the first major John Templeton Foundation project with over US $ 5 million, Med Uni Graz is among the top league. To better connect scientific skills between clinical and preclinical, the first Med Uni Graz flagship was recently published: a highly innovative project in the field of cardiovascular health is funded with an additional chair and 750,000 euros.
To make Med Uni Graz’s research profile even better and more successful in the future, a major scientific advisory board has recently been established, which also includes Heiko von der Leyen, for example.
The innovative range of courses meets the spirit of the times
Med Uni Graz distinguishes research-led and goal-oriented learning teaching with a modular structure in all curricula. The international level and high quality standards have been confirmed in regular certifications and continuously developed. For the first time since its foundation, Med Uni Graz has catalogs of learning objectives for all basic studies – in human medicine for the clinic, but also the preclinical studies section and in dentistry – in order to create a uniform framework, which is not only a special feature in German-speaking countries.
The range of courses offered by Med Uni Graz, which includes courses in human medicine and dentistry, the master’s degree in nursing, doctoral studies and a wide range of university courses, has been expanded in the last two years with three innovative extension courses and expanded a forward-looking master’s degree in “Interprofessional Health Care Studies” for the health professions. With the new campus and virtual campus, our students are offered extraordinary learning settings: from digital teaching / learning offerings, hybrid courses to innovative hands-on formats.
A look to the future: Graz Medical School as a relay for progress
The further expansion of the excellent research infrastructure, adapted to current research questions, a major participation in BioTechMed-Graz, the Cori Institute for Metabolism Research and the Ignaz Semmelweis Institute, as well as the resulting future opportunities for science, the promotion of students within the student life cycle and their enthusiasm for science and the creation of a business forge in the field of knowledge transfer are just some of the projects planned to position Med Uni Graz even better in international level in the future. All this under the head of a general cultural change in the sense of the Graz Medical School, which always focuses on people in all central areas of the university and in doing so lives up to the motto of Med Uni Graz “Pioneering Minds – Research and Patient Health and Welfare Education. ”In this form, this approach and its implementation are a unique strength of Med Uni Graz.
Source: Graz Medical University
