University of Innsbruck

The University of Innsbruck is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. It is 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. 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). During the National Socialist era, the university was renamed the "Deutsche Alpenuniversität" in March 1941 at the suggestion of the then Rector Raimund von Klebelsberg. As at all universities, "Säuberungsaktionen" took place: Opponents of the National Socialists were deprived of their powers and excluded from academic life. In 1945, after the end of World War II, it was reopened under the name "University of Innsbruck".