Riga Technical University

Riga Polytechnical Institute (1862–1918)

Riga Polytechnicum was first established in 1862 and was the first polytechnical institute in Imperial Russia. It offered degrees in agriculture, chemistry, engineering, mechanics, trade and architecture, with education in German.

In addition to four technical faculties (architecture, engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry), the polytechnic also included an agricultural and a commercial faculty. The first lecturers came from German Empire, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary. The language of instruction was German.

Between 1863 and 1869, the number of students increased from sixteen to ninety. The establishment of a faculty of architecture at the Polytechnicum in 1869 was instrumental in providing Riga with a group of locally trained architects, with consequences for the development of the characteristic Art Nouveau architecture in Riga.

In 1869 the polytechnic moved into a new building. Since there was a lack of technical universities in Russia, many students – especially from the Baltic Sea governments – had gone to study at ETH Zurich, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, TU Dresden and Leibniz University Hannover. This trend began to shift after January 1, 1874 when Alexander II of Russia introduced general conscription. Under this policy, all men from the age of 21 had to serve fifteen years, six in the Imperial Russian Army and nine in the reserve. For graduates of the Russian university who wanted to study, the period of service was only six months. This difference led to a significant increase in student numbers. At the beginning of the academic year 1874/75, 59 students enrolled, the total student body comprised 201 members.

In the course of Russification, Nicholas II of Russia nationalized the university by decree of May 6, 1896. From 1896 to 1918 it was renamed the Riga Polytechnical Institute (Rīgas Politehniskais institūts – RPI) and the language of instruction was changed to Russian.

The number of students continued to increase, reaching 2088 students in 1913/14. In 1918/19 the Polytechnic was called the Baltic Technical University (Baltijas Tehniskā augstskola).

When World War I started in 1914, the Riga Polytechnical Institute was evacuated to Moscow, where it operated until 1918. After that, part of the faculty then returned to Latvia and joined the newly established University of Latvia.

In 1919, the university was incorporated as a technical faculty of the Latvian University of Applied Sciences (Latvijas Augstskola, since 1923: University of Latvia), which was founded after independence. On September 1, 1958, their technical faculties were spun off again and raised to an independent university. From 1958 to 1983 it was called the Riga Polytechnic Institute, and then renamed the Arvīds Pelše Institute of Technology in Riga (Latvian: Arvīda Pelšes vārdā nosauktais Rīgas politehniskais institūts). In the mid-1970s, the university became the largest university in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. It has been called the Riga Technical University since March 1990. On April 23, 1992, a student parliament was founded. It is the oldest student self-government in Latvia.

The Riga Business School is a management–education institution within Riga Technical University. It was founded in 1991, in close cooperation with the State University of New York at Buffalo (USA) and the University of Ottawa (Canada), and it was the first higher education institution in the Baltic states that offered Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs in English.

The school currently has more than 800 MBA graduates, mostly middle- and upper-level managers both in Latvia and abroad. The education standards and structure are adopted from the North-American style MBA, which contains case studies, working in groups, and active participation in classrooms.