The decision is made – new CEU campus being opened in Vienna

Vienna signed an agreement recently with Central European University about establishing a new campus, as the Austrian news agency APA reported on Monday. According to the document, a historic building will be rented by CEU for 99 years. The private university established by George Soros also pledged to preserve the building in its current proper status. 

According to HVG, the last step of completing the contract will be a discussion with the cultural, science and sports committee of Vienna.

The rental contract between the city of Vienna and the CEU is planned to be concluded by the end of September. If everything proceeds as planned, the new campus will begin to operate in the term of 2022/23. However, an in-between version is also included in the contract, which would make it possible for the university unit to be opened 3 years earlier than planned.

CEU has announced in March that they are planning to create a third campus after the ones in Budapest and New York.

Michael Häupt was the mayor in office at that time in Vienna, who saw the “opportunity of the century” in the cooperation with the Central European University.

CEU’s chairman Michael Ignatieff pointed out that Vienna is one of the great global centres of education, commerce and international organisations.  He considered the new campus as a new perspective for the students and scholars of the Austrian capital. He stated that both the leadership of the university and the municipal of Vienna has great expectations about the cooperation.

He also added that though the campus in Vienna has been a big dream, they still consider Budapest as the true home of CEU.

As he claimed, they are enthusiastic about solving the long-term future of the campus in Budapest through the agreement between the state of New York and the Hungarian government. The university’s leaders hope that the government of Hungary signs the contract as soon as possible.

Photo: asef.org

Source: HVG