University of Innsbruck
The University of Innsbruck (; ) is a public university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. It is currently the largest education facility in the Austrian Bundesland of Tirol, and the third largest in Austria behind Vienna University and the University of Graz. Significant contributions have been made in many branches, most of all in the physics department. Further, regarding the number of "Web of Science"-listed publications, it occupies the third rank worldwide in the area of mountain research. In the Handelsblatt Ranking 2015, the business administration faculty ranks  among the 15 best business administration faculties in German-speaking countries. History. In 1562, a Jesuit grammar school was established in Innsbruck by Peter Canisius, today called "Akademisches Gymnasium Innsbruck". It was financed by the salt mines in Hall in Tirol, and was re-chartered as a university on October 15, 1669 by Leopold I with four faculties. In 1782 this was reduced to a mere lyceum (as were all other universities in the Austrian Empire, apart from Prague, Vienna and Lviv), but it was reestablished as the University of Innsbruck in 1826 by Emperor Franz I. The university is  therefore named after both of its founding fathers with the official title "Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck" ("Universitas Leopoldino-Franciscea"). In 1991, Lauda Air Flight 004 crashed in Thailand, killing all aboard, including 21 members of the University of Innsbruck. The passengers included professor and economist Clemens August Andreae, another professor, six assistants, and 13 students. Andreae had often led field visits to Hong Kong. In 2005, copies of letters written by the emperors Frederick II and Conrad IV were found in the university's library. They arrived in Innsbruck in the 18th century, having left the charterhouse Allerengelberg in Schnals  due to its abolishment. Ceremonial Equipment. In the 1850s, the Habsburgs gradually closed the University of Olomouc as a consequence of the Olomouc students' and professors' participation in the 1848 revolutions and the Czech National Revival. The ceremonial equipment of the University of Olomouc was then transferred to the University of Innsbruck. The original Olomouc ceremonial maces from the 1580s are now used as the maces of Innsbruck University and Innsbruck Medical University. Olomouc University Rector's mace from ca. 1572 is nowadays used as the mace of the Innsbruck Faculty of Theology and Olomouc Faculty of Law Dean's  Mace from 1833 is nowadays used as Innsbruck's Faculty of Law Mace. Since the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Czechs have been unsuccessfully requesting the return of the University of Olomouc's original ceremonial equipment. Many years later, in 1998, Innsbruck donated an exact copy of the rector's mace to Palacký University, but it is still, in 2015, using the Olomouc University original maces and other regalia as its own ceremonial equipment. The faculties. The new plan of organisation (having become effective on October 1, 2004) installed the following 16 faculties to replace the previously existing six  faculties: As of 1 January 2004, the Faculty of Medicine was sectioned off from the main university to become a university in its own right. This is now called the Innsbruck Medical University (Medizinische Universität Innsbruck). The inter-disciplinary unit called the Digital Science Center (DiSC) was founded in 2019 to integrate and promote digitalisation of scientific research as well as to support high-quality science. Buildings. The university buildings are spread across the city and there is no university campus as such. The most important locations are: