Standstill at IT:U

It’s back to the start for the Digital University Linz

This will not happen: the Linz IT:U will not be built in the Linz green belt. An alternative location was not even considered.(Bild: Kronaus Mitterer Architekten)

15 critical questions, but few answers. What's the status of the new digital university in Linz? Education Minister Martin Polaschek provides new details in response to a parliamentary question, and the city of Linz and the province of Upper Austria are also threatened with new costs. 

On the penultimate day of the old year, a document crucial to the university location in Linz appeared in parliament in Vienna. In it, Education Minister Martin Polaschek lists the status of the new IT:U. The most important facts in the answer to the written question from Neos MP Martina Künsberg Sarre:

• In 2023, 8.6 million euros were incurred for the new university, for which there is a name but not yet a campus.

• For the year 2024, which has just ended, expenditure up to mid-November amounted to 17.9 million euros.

• The Minister of Education's response also contains the word "standstill". Specifically in the passage about the rejected location at the JKU in Linz-Dornach. 

Location outside Linz not an alternative
As is well known, the federal government, state and city had initially agreed on a new building in the green belt, but these plans were rejected by mayoral candidate Dietmar Prammer of the SPÖ after the resignation of city leader Klaus Luger. He said: "No alternative locations for the IT:U are currently being examined".

And further: "From a fundamental university policy perspective, locations outside the city of Linz are not suitable alternatives for the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research." This means that IT:U, which already employs 90 people and has just rented 6090 square meters of office and laboratory space in the Science Park, has to get back to the start.

"Now everything is back to square one. There must be clarity after the mayoral election in Linz!"

Gemeinderat Georg Redlhammer, Neos

Bild: Krone KREATIV/Bulavina

"The university has already cost EUR 24 million"
Linz local councillor Georg Redlhammer takes the parliamentary question from his pink colleagues in Vienna as an opportunity to make a critical comment: "We are talking about a university that does not yet physically exist, but has already cost over €24 million. The planning of the IT:U apparently assumed that dedications would not be a problem anyway if everyone involved wanted the project. But now everything is different."

Money back for the architectural competition?
The state and city could now face further costs. "The federal government could demand reimbursement of the costs incurred for the architectural competition and the preparatory work," says Redlhammer: "There must be clarity after the mayoral election in Linz."