In 1999, the Private University Act passed the Austrian Parliament, making it possible to found a university in Austria. As defined by this law, the wording must include “private” university, thus differentiating private universities from state institutions. An extensive and strict accreditation procedure is in place and must be repeated every few years to meet the required quality standards.

People are attracted by better job opportunities, a wide range of cultural activities – which, however, are increasingly available in rural areas as well – and especially by better educational opportunities. These advantages outweigh the often architecturally forbidding urban areas in which people have to live. Hence, the outstanding educational institutions in Vienna which are sites of reflection, ambition and innovation, come as no surprise. Vienna is the second biggest university city in the German-speaking areas, offering a wide range of educational and vocational training opportunities at public and private universities and universities of applied sciences.

The SFU’s research profile is characterized by two unique features:

• SFU branches in several countries enable research projects from a cooperative international perspective.
• The SFU as a center of excellence offers the framework for cross-faculty interdisciplinary research.

This requires a close cooperation of faculties and branches in the field of research in order to benefit from synergies arising from the scientific staff’s individual research expertise.

Good examples are research in psychosomatics where the Faculty of Human Medicine closely cooperates with the Institute of Psychosomatics of the Faculty of Psychotherapy Science, and the psychotherapy training research conducted by SFU Vienna and SFU Ljubljana.