Institute of Science and Technology Austria

The Institute of Science and Technology Austria stands in Maria Gugging, a village near Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria, twenty kilometres northwest of Vienna. The campus occupies 179,000 square metres of green space and holds ten main buildings arranged around a central pond. A bridge links the historical Central Building to the Bertalanffy Foundation Building and the two laboratory buildings. The Preclinical Facility and two administrative buildings complete the ring of research spaces. The institute was founded in 2009 by the provincial and federal governments on the model of the Weizmann Institute of Science. It now hosts eighty-four research groups across chemistry, biology, physics and computer science, with plans to expand to ninety groups by 2026 and 150 by 2036. The graduate school enrols 365 doctoral students who rotate through three research groups before choosing a thesis topic. International review panels chaired by Nobel laureates have repeatedly praised the institute’s rapid progress. Visitors find a quiet campus where science and nature meet. The Central Building contains a lecture hall, seminar rooms and a guest house, while the newer Sunstone and Moonstone buildings house chemical and astrophysics research. A covered bridge leads to the xista science park, home to start-ups and the institute’s technology transfer company. Paths wind past the pond and through the landscaped grounds, offering views of the surrounding hills and the distant spires of Klosterneuburg.