Aalto University

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Aalto University
logo
founding 1849, 2010
Sponsorship private law foundation
place Espoo and Helsinki , Finland
Rector Ilkka Niemelae
Students 10,881 (2018)
Employee 4,287 (2018)
including professors 389 (2018)
Networks CESAER , CLUSTER , UArctic
Website www.aalto.fi

The Aalto University ( Finnish Aalto-yliopisto , Swedish Aalto universitetet ) is a Finnish university in the capital Helsinki and its neighboring city of Espoo . It was formed in 2010 through the merger of three previously independent universities and is named after the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto .

history

Aalto University was officially founded on January 1st, 2010 through the amalgamation of the Helsinki University of Technology, the Helsinki School of Business and the Helsinki School of Art and Design.

The previous universities will continue to exist as sub-areas or schools in the newly created university.

Aalto University School of Science and Technology

The main building of the Helsinki University of Technology
The TKK logo

The Aalto University School of Science and Technology emerged in 2011 from the former Helsinki University of Technology, which emerged from the Helsinki Technical School founded in 1849 . The establishment of the Technical University in the middle of the 19th century established the organized technical education in Finland. In 1872 it was renamed the Helsinki Polytechnic School and in 1879 the Helsinki Polytechnic Institute . In 1908 it became the Helsinki University of Technology (Finnish Helsingin Teknillinen Korkeakoulu , TKK), and thus technical training began at the university level in Finland.

In the 1950s and 1960s, new buildings were erected in Helsinki's neighboring town of Espoo to meet the TKK's growing space requirements. The well-known Finnish architect Alvar Aalto distinguished himself here, who designed the buildings uniformly, namely in flat, wide construction, favored by the generous amount of space, with flat roofs and red clinker bricks. The shape of the main building is reminiscent of an ancient theater . Thus, the technical university left its original location in the Helsinki district of Hietalahti and settled on the Otaniemi peninsula in the municipality of Espoo.

Since the merger to form Aalto University, the former faculties have been founded as four new schools. These are the School of Engineering , the School of Chemical Technology , the School of Science, and the School of Electrical Engineering .

AScI - Aalto Science Institute

The Aalto Science Institute was founded in 2011 to provide a forum for scientists from all faculties represented at Aalto University for mutual scientific exchange across disciplines. Achieving this goal is the requirement of the programs running under the umbrella of the institute.

Helsinki University of Art and Design

The Helsinki School of Art and Design was established in 1871 and is an integral part of Finnish design culture.

Aalto University is founded

The Finnish Minister of Education, at the time Ms. Sari Sarkomaa , and representatives of the other founders, signed the Aalto University Charter on June 25, 2008 in Helsinki. A seven-member executive committee was presented on August 15, 2008: Matti Alahuhta (CEO, Kone Oyj ), Robert A. Brown (President of Boston University), Anne Brunila (President and CEO), Bengt Holmström (MIT), Marja Makarow (Univ. Helsinki, ERC), Saku Mantere (Hanken School of Economics) and Senior Design Manager Anna Valtonen (Nokia Oyj). Aalto University also created the world's first professorship for Curating and Mediating Art (for curatorial and educational work in the field of the visual arts) and appointed the Austrian cultural scientist and curator Nora Sternfeld .

Tuula Teeri was elected by the board of directors to be the first female president of Aalto University.

Campus and students

The Helsinki University of Technology campus

The university campus is also home to numerous spin-off companies that work closely with the TKK or that have emerged from its institutes. There are also numerous student and internship dormitories near the campus. This, as well as the settlement of many high-tech and new economy companies in the immediate vicinity of Otaniemi, played a major role in the fact that the formerly small suburb of Espoo developed into the second largest city in Finland in the second half of the 20th century.

The Finnish education system does not require students to pay any tuition fees ; in many cases, state or industrial grants support students in their training. The student body is generally organized in - literally translated - "municipalities"; the most important at the TKK is the Teknillisen Korkeakoulun Ylioppilaskunta , TKY for short . The English term “Union” or the German term “Fachschaft” is most likely to do justice to the function. However, paid membership in the “municipalities” is generally mandatory. To this end, the associations also offer services such as medical care.

Finnish students can often be identified by their student overalls on special occasions .

Many of the student residences were built from the buildings of the Olympic Village from the 1952 Summer Olympics . During the World Athletics Championships and the subsequent open European Paralympic Championships in Helsinki and Espoo in August 2005, numerous athletes were again accommodated in Otaniemi.

Web links

Commons : Aalto University  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Key figures of 2018 and reports | Aalto University. Retrieved March 2, 2020 .
  2. ↑ http://sci.aalto.fi/en/about/history/

Coordinates: 60 ° 11 ′ 10 ″  N , 24 ° 49 ′ 43 ″  E