Strategic plan of VSB-TUO 2021 — 2027

Abstract

The Strategic Plan must define the methods and processes for achieving the expected objectives. However, there are some things that simply cannot be numbered, organized, or planned. One of these things is co-operation. Our university as a whole has outstanding prospects for meeting the most difficult objectives. We are capable of resolving the most demanding projects, we have superb experts in our research areas, but despite this, we do not rank among important universities on a European or global scale. The proposed strategy contains a possible guide for creating an environment for the future success of the university. This objective can only be fulfilled under conditions of mutual co-operation and respect. The future growth of our university depends on the maximum engagement of VSB-TUO in the transformation of our region. This transformation will require maximum emphasis on education, because our region’s future lies in our students and graduates. And that’s one of the reasons we want to transform our university campus into a living laboratory: so that students will be surrounded by the technologies they will use in the future. This isn’t just about technology, but also social economic impacts. This places major demands on the selection of research directions that will support such a transformation. One key aspect I’d like to mention is the multidisciplinarity of future research. Apart from teaching and applied research, in the future we must also strengthen our basic research so that our applied research will build on it and achieve sustainability. We can use this to define the position of our university on a global scale through a selection of universities and research centres with the same focus to which we can compare ourselves. We can divide the conditions of our future success into the tangible and intangible. The Strategic Plan presented here defines the framework of the tangible and quantifiable environment. Yet the intangible, unquantifiable conditions are no less important. One of them is social responsibility, where our university holds up under comparison with even the most respected of universities. In closing, I would cite the most fundamental measure of the success of our Strategic Plan, which is one of the basic differentiators between universities: there are universities that make the rules, and universities that follow them. The Strategic Plan of VSB-TUO presented here will be successful if we become a university that makes the rules.