Johannes Kepler University of Linz

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JKU's campus

Johannes Kepler University of Linz (JKU Linz, or just JKU -- the full German name is Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, the short version is Universität Linz, University of Linz in English; its Latin name is alma mater Kepleriana) is a public institution of higher education in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, offering bachelor's, diploma, master's, and doctoral degrees in business, engineering, law, science, and the social sciences.

JKU was founded as the "College for Social and Economic Sciences Linz" (Hochschule für Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften Linz) in 1966. Three years later, the science and engineering school opened. The law school and university status arrived in 1975 when the college also adopted its present name, in honour of the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) who wrote his magnum opus harmonices mundi ("The Harmony of the world") in Linz during the early 17th century and who spent some time teaching mathematics at an agricultural school which Linz had at the time.

Today, 16,800 [1] students study at JKU's 90 acre (364,000 m²) campus in the northeast of Linz (approx. 6.6km = 4.1 miles from the city centre), with 1 in 11 being from abroad. The campus is served by the public tram system of the city -- there are trams every 7-8 minutes on working days (less frequently during the evening, the week-end, and public holidays) and the journey to the city centre takes approx. 16 minutes. Most of the campus has been wireless for several years now, the university was the first to introduce an electronic student ID in 1998, and has been offering a very successful distance law degree with lecture notes on DVD and via internet streaming.

The university is home of the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics (RICAM) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Specialties include technical mathematics, applied economics, business law, European law, and mechatronics.

There are three other universities in Linz, a public one for arts and industrial design (University of Arts Linz, c. 800 students) and two private ones, one for music (Bruckner University, c. 1000 students) and one for Catholic theology (Catholic-Theological Private University Linz, c. 500 students), a Papal faculty since 1978.