Following the Innovation Start-up and Researcher Accommodation buildings, a third building, the Lecture Hall-Auditorium has finally been completed and handed over to the facility management team at the Zalaegerszeg Innovation Park of Széchenyi István University at ZalaZONE. The goal of the 740.2 million HUF of non-reimbursable EU funding awarded under the Economic Development and Innovation Operational Programme was to contribute to the strengthening of the area’s competitiveness with the establishment of an internationally high-quality teaching and research environment.
ZalaZONE Science Park ecosystem, encompassing the Proving Ground, University Innovation Park – Campus, Technology & Research centre as well as the Industrial Park, belongs to the Széchenyi István Foundation Group. Within the Innovation Park – Campus, the Széchenyi István University has invested and built several state-of-the-art infrastructural projects, which will contribute to the high quality training of young professionals, the research-development and innovational activity of the institution and Academia partners, as well as further strengthening of the collaborative atmosphere with the industrial sector.
After handing over the Innovation and Accommodation buildings last year the Lecture hall too has been completed, and with this integrative conclusion the development of the university’s Zalaegerszeg Innovation Park – Campus has been released from a fund of 4.016 billion HUF.
The Lecture Hall has a base building area of the 502 m2, where the two storey facility contains a ground floor auditorium with retractable bleacher seating suitable to accommodate over 100 people, and an upstairs or first floor allocating – besides the service rooms – a office and meeting room space for academics-researchers groups.
(Photo: András Adorján)
“Today Széchenyi University is registered on six major higher education world rankings, 4 out of which the university got on the list for the first time this year. We are ranked in the top ten percent of universities in Europe by QS and in the top five percent of universities in the world by Times Higher Education. In addition, in the field of engineering our institution is listed among the best in the world. We are beyond proud that our university got on two sustainability rankings, considering contributing to sustainability is our priority objective.” – said Dr Eszter Lukács, Vice President for International and Strategic Relations of the University, at the ceremony on 30 November. She stressed that the presence of the institution in ZalaZONE is an important pillar of its international visibility.
“In addition to the continuous modernisation of our 21st century infrastructure, and our research & development and innovation capacity, the high quality of our training is what we want to contribute to the competitiveness of the region.” – she stressed. Dr. Eszter Lukács added that the institution offers more than 200 Hungarian and 40 English-language courses, including – in addition to undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programmes – specialised postgraduate and micro-certificate courses. She underlined that these forms of education will also be served by the new lecture building.
Speaking at the ceremony, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said that in the 2020’s, Hungary must prove that it can compete not only in manufacturing but also in the higher value added research & development sphere.
“We want regional centres like ZalaZONE to gather as much talent, knowledge and innovative energy as possible and show that this decade of the Hungarian economy is really about this.” – he said. He stressed that the aim was not for universities to carry out their R&D for their institution only, but for it to be directly integrated into the economy.
“We want to make higher education and the academic world an important measure of the extent to which a teacher can get involved in the economy.”
– he noted. He then went on to add: “The opportunities provided by the higher education model change have played a major role in enabling Széchenyi University to move up the world rankings.
(Photo: András Adorján)
The Mayor of Zalaegerszeg, Zoltán Balaicz, said that the partnership between Széchenyi University and the city would strengthen the city’s development, and in turn compound the positive impact on the economy. He recalled that in the early 2010s, this area used to be arable land, but today it is one of Europe’s most important automotive test tracks, home not only to the university but also to several major international companies.
“In 2014, the unemployment rate in the city was 7.5 per cent, since then nearly 5,000 new jobs have been created and the jobless rate has fallen to 2.5 per cent. As well, income on business taxes has increased from three billion forints to seven billion,” he explained.
He added that ZalaZONE and the Széchenyi University played a big role in achieving these great results.
At the ceremony, it was said that the Zalaegerszeg Innovation Park is a key element of the innovation park network of Széchenyi István University. The most important aim in creating this infrastructure is to enable the cooperation between large companies and the higher learning institution allowing the creation of significant added value products and services and in doing so further raise the awareness of our quality practice-oriented training and thus the value of the degree obtained at Széchenyi István University.
(Photo: András Adorján)