Strategic Partnerships

The University of Vienna has established “strategic partnerships” with a small number of outstanding universities. The aim is to extend and intensify networking and collaboration in the fields of research, student exchange, teaching and administration. In these strategic partnerships we are dealing with long-term, tried and tested partners in collaboration of the University of Vienna. The already existing close relationships form a solid basis for successful, reliable and multi-faceted collaboration within the strategic partnerships.

The University of Vienna provides special funding for the establishing and intensification of strategic partnerships. In discussion with our partner universities, joint collaborative activities are planned and undertaken and various funding measures developed – tailored individually to the particular strategic partnership. These individually designed programmes encourage networking and exchanges at all levels and are intended for various target groups within the university. This makes participation in networking activities, academic exchanges and mobility programmes available to academic staff, students and the university's administrative staff as part of the strategic partnerships.

With the strategic partnerships, in 2015 a further form of partnership was added to the University of Vienna’s existing contractual collaboration concepts, this new form aiming to establish a particularly intensive relationship in as broad a range of academic disciplines as possible and at all levels of the university.

The selection of strategic partnerships is subject to specific criteria and is undertaken by the university’s management. Decisions are based on analyses by and recommendations from the International Office that draw on the expertise of the Department for Bibliometrics and Publication Strategies of the University Library and on the experiences of academic staff involved in existing collaborations.

Strategic partnerships are being set up step by step. In a first phase, strategic partnerships were entered into with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015) and the University of Chicago (2016). Peking University, Fudan University and Kyoto University followed in a second phase (all 2019). For future years, both further expansion and an intensification of the existing partnerships are planned.