The story
Founding
The school was founded in the middle of the 19th century when long-standing efforts to establish a vocational school to train mining professionals culminated. The Mining Vocational School in Příbram (Montan-Lehranstalt in Příbram) was established by imperial decree on 23 January 1849, and the first year of study was inaugurated on 10 November of the same year. From the time of its foundation, the school offered two courses, one for mining and the other for metallurgy. In 1865, the school adopted the name of the Mining Academy in Příbram (Bergakademie in Příbram). Although private mining companies undervalued higher education in mining, its importance was emphasised by the increasing frequency of mining disasters. According to the statutes of 1895, the Rector, elected by the professorial staff members, was responsible for the management of the mining academy, as in other universities. The professors of the Mining Academy in Příbram were thus placed on an equal footing with the professors of the technical colleges. Still, it was not until 1904 that the Mining Academy in Leoben and Příbram was upgraded to a fully-fledged university under a new statute, which was common to the mining academies in Leoben and Příbram. The new legislation also changed the name of the Mining Academy in Příbram to the Mining University in Příbram (Montanistische Hochschule in Příbram).
The declaration of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 and the introduction of the Czech language of instruction a year later were important milestones for the further development of the University. Among the most important issues that all rectors dealt with in the interwar period was the demand for the transfer of VSB from Příbram as an independent university to Prague, which did not happen during the entire First Republic period. Nevertheless, during this period, VSB in Příbram gained an important position in the system of higher technical education and made a significant contribution to the development of scientific knowledge in the traditional mining disciplines and the fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and natural sciences. The closure of the Czech universities in November 1939 marked the end of VSB's Příbram period, just as it was preparing to celebrate its 90th anniversary.
After the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, VSB in Příbram resumed its activities in May, but based on the decree of the President of the Republic Edvard Beneš of 8 September 1945, it was transferred from Příbram to Ostrava. The teaching of the winter semester of the academic year 1945/1946 started in Ostrava in November 1945. The further development of VSB in Ostrava and the whole Czechoslovak higher education system was influenced by the issue of the new Higher Education Act in 1950. The new act represented a fundamental change in the existing structure of the higher education system. In effect, it subordinated higher education institutions to state supervision and effectively abolished academic freedoms. The new legal regulation of 1950 also fundamentally changed the internal structure of VSB in Ostrava. From the academic year 1951/1952, the Faculties of Mining and Metallurgy were established. The Faculty of Mining Engineering (since 1968, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) was established at VSB by incorporating the College of Engineering in Brušperk. In 1953, two more faculties were established, the Faculty of Economics and Engineering (abolished in 1959) and the Faculty of Geology (merged with the Faculty of Mining in 1959). From the 1950s onwards, new fields of study and specialisations were gradually established in response to the demands of industrial practice, triggered by significant developments in the traditional mining disciplines and mechanical and electrical engineering. An important moment in the development of the University was the start of its activities in the newly built premises in Ostrava-Poruba in 1973. VSB in Ostrava gradually transformed from a traditional mining university into a polytechnic university, which was facilitated by the development of disciplines and fields of study that increasingly used computer technology. The development of economic disciplines at VSB Ostrava resulted in the establishment of the Faculty of Economics in 1977. In the same year, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering was renamed the Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, which was the culmination of many years of development and gradual profiling of the faculty’s scientific and pedagogical activities in the field of electrical engineering.
The society-wide events of November 1989 and the subsequent political developments marked a return to autonomy and academic freedoms for Czechoslovak higher education. In the first half of the 1990s, VSB in Ostrava underwent an extensive transformation. The change in study fields was triggered by the restructuring of the metallurgical industries and the downsizing programme in the mining sector. While preserving the traditional fields of study in which VSB Ostrava had maintained an exclusive position for decades, it was necessary to focus on other fields using new technologies and materials. The faculties thus had to respond to the current needs of the labour market in the content of individual degree programmes. A positive consequence of the revolutionary events was the opening of the borders, which enabled the establishment of contacts and contracts with foreign universities and research institutes and the involvement of the University in international scientific research programmes. The transformation of VSB into a polytechnic university was completed with the establishment of the independent Faculty of Electrical Engineering in 1991 and its name extension to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1993. The change of the traditional name of the Faculty of Metallurgy to the Faculty of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering in 1991 was related to its new concept and the focus of its research and teaching activities in the field of materials science.
Modern period
In 1994, the traditional historical name of the university was changed to VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. The long tradition of teaching in civil engineering and geotechnics became the basis for establishing the independent Faculty of Civil Engineering in 1997. More than thirty years of development in the field of fire prevention technology and industrial safety, together with the demands of practice for the preparation of university-educated professionals in the field of safety engineering, led to the establishment of the Faculty of Safety Engineering in 2002. With the establishment of other specialised workplaces, quality facilities corresponding to their needs were built within the University campus in Ostrava-Poruba. The Energy Research Centre, the Nanotechnology Centre, the University institute ENET (Energy Units for Utilisation of Non-Traditional Energy Sources), and now the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technologies have been developing their successful research activities here. Based on long-standing research and development activities in the field of information technologies, the National Supercomputing Centre IT4Innovations was established in 2015. It currently operates two supercomputers: Barbora (commissioned in autumn 2019) and Karolina (ranked as the 112th most powerful supercomputer in the world in 2024), as well as a dedicated system for artificial intelligence computing, NVIDIA DGX-2 (launched in spring 2019).
In 2021, the construction of a new building of the Faculty of Economics and the construction of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technologies started within the VSB–TUO campus.
From Wikipedia’s article on VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4