The Czech Technical University in Prague was established in 1707. It is the oldest civilian technical university east of the Rhine and north of the Alps, and the largest in the Czech Republic, with about 24 000 students in eight faculties that cover a broad range of fields of engineering and information sciences. The faculties, in the order in which they were founded, are the Faculty of Civil Engineering, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Nuclear Science and Physical Engineering, the Faculty of Architecture, the Faculty of Transportation Sciences, the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, and the Faculty of Information Sciences.
CTU is a research-based university university. Academic staff are required to work on research projects andlor scientific projects, and, when appropriate, on artistic and creative projects. All students from every study programme work on major projects. Their bachelor and master studies both include a major final research project. PhD students have to show that they are able to undertake all aspects of a major, original research project.
CTU is a public university. That is to say that CTU receives most of its funding either directly from state sources or, more recently, indirectly from state sources, e.g. through applications for competitive grant funding.
CTU is an internationally oriented university, for many reasons. Firstly, engineering is inherently international. Secondly, the Czech Republic is a small country’ SuÍTounded by accessible neighbours (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Austria). Since the changes in 1989, there has been very strong support for re-establishing CTU as a technical university widely respected all over Europe, and for facilitating travel for academic staff and for students.
Travel over the past 25 years has brought the people at CTU into close contact with international good practice. CTU scientists collaborate very widely with researchers all over the European Union and increasingly in the rest of the world.
CTU is in many ways at the forefront oť Czech education, not only through its leading positions in national and international ratings, but with its Inovacentrum, which stands at the interface between the technical university and industrial companies in the Czech Republic and the world; with the support offered to students with disabilities; with its prizewinning International Student Club, which provides a remarkable welcome for international Erasmus and Exchange students, and for the increasing numbers of foreign students that study as students of CTU either in English or in Czech language.