Austrian Institute of Science and Technology Looks to be on the Starting Blocks. (July 12, 2007)

The founding of an Austrian interdisciplinary graduate institute originally to be headed by Anton Zeilinger, head of physics at the University of Vienna, last year looked to be all but dead in the water when Zeilinger

Planned Austrian Institute of Science and Technology at Gugging, 45 minutes from Vienna to become functional in 2008.

left, decrying political interference. Of particular concern was the decision to place the institute in the town of Gugging, 45 minutes from Vienna, at the site of a former psychiatric hospital.

However, Haim Harari, a theoretical physicist and the former president of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science joined the project in late 2005, on the understanding that the politicians should give the scientific community more control over the project, while acquiescing with regard to placing it at Gugging.

According to Nature: "On 12 July, an 11-member scientific advisory board was expected to approve the focus for the planned Institute of Science and Technology. All research themes will be interdisciplinary, concentrating in the areas of biology, medicine and the physical sciences. Detailed research programmes will be defined by the institute's scientists, who are now being headhunted. The overall organizational structure though Professor Harari's vision is expected to by similar to the Weizmann's.

Christoph Kratky, a molecular biologist from the University of Graz and head of the Austrian science fund FWF in Vienna, told Nature's Carina Lenotti: "Now it is necessary for the Institute of Science and Technology to reach a chain-reaction mass, so that it can get on with its work in the absence of closely neighbouring institutes."

Germany had also considered building an elite graduate school from scratch but dropped the idea in favour of increasing resources for existing universities that show promise in utilizing the funds for significantly upping their game.

Meanwhile the Italian Institute of Technology, established at the end of 2003, is struggling.

The Austrian venture is promised €500 million (A$800 million) over the next ten years and construction is to begin in the Northern autumn with scientists who don't need complex equipment expected to start work sometime in 2008.