PRESS RELEASE, Ostrava, November 4, 2025
In 1945, the Mining College was transferred from Příbram to Ostrava by decision of the President of the Republic and its development began. It gradually grew into a large university with 7 faculties and a multifunctional campus. To mining and metallurgy were added mechanical and civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, economics and safety engineering. Student numbers have grown from hundreds to thousands.
“We commemorate this anniversary with pride and respect for the work of our predecessors who managed to gradually build a respected institution in Ostrava – the third largest technical university in the Czech Republic. The world is changing, but the importance of technical education is not decreasing, on the contrary, it is growing. And we are doing everything we can to ensure that our students have the best possible conditions,” said Igor Ivan, Rector of VŠB – Technical University Ostrava.
The relocation of the Mining College from Příbram to Ostrava was the result of long-standing discussions that began in 1904, when the German part of the professorial staff and students proposed a move to North Bohemia. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the Czech professors advocated a move to Prague. After the end of the Second World War, the majority of the academic community still preferred the capital, but the Minister of Education, Zdeněk Nejedlý, had the final say. He gave priority to strategic, industrial and political considerations and chose Moravian Ostrava, the developing industrial heart of the republic, as the new seat of the school, as a counterbalance to the universities concentrated in Prague.
Despite the resistance of the town of Příbram, some students and the professorial staff, the transfer of the VŠB was officially confirmed by a decree of President Edvard Beneš in September 1945. The opening registration confirmed the great interest of the students at that time. 113 students of metallurgy and 208 students of mining entered. Teaching in Ostrava began on 1 November 1945 in temporary premises. In 1951, VŠB was divided into 3 faculties (Mining, Metallurgical, Mining Engineering). After 1960, discussions began about moving the school from the city centre to Poruba.
The construction of the campus in Ostrava-Poruba was divided into three stages, the first of which began in 1964 with the construction of two university dormitory buildings and a canteen. The construction of the educational part began in 1973 and, in addition to the Rector’s Office building, which is the dominant feature of the university quarter, it also included buildings for departments, lecture halls and laboratories. In the 1970s and 1980s, the campus was expanded with additional dormitory buildings, a new canteen, a geology pavilion and a central library.
In the new millennium, the campus was supplemented by a university auditorium, which expanded the missing social and teaching spaces. In 2012, construction of a new building for the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science began, followed by the construction of a modern building for the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technologies and a new building for the Faculty of Economics in 2014.
Disciplines, programmes and faculties have also developed. The Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science were added. The process of transformation of VŠB into a polytechnic university was completed in 1995 by changing its name to Vysoká škola báňská – Technická univerzita Ostrava. After that, the Faculty of Civil Engineering was created and the youngest faculty is the Faculty of Safety Engineering.
The move to Ostrava was a major step towards the development of the region and technical higher education and its accessibility to students from Moravia and Silesia, but also Slovakia. Today, VŠB – Technical University Ostrava is one of the leading technical universities in Central Europe, has
7 faculties and over 13 thousand students.
Video on topic: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCynbttAd7g
More about the history of VŠB-TUO: https://www.vsb.cz/cs/univerzita/historie/
