Mission Statement

As a research-intensive public university with a keen awareness of its obligations to society, WU prepares its students to take on responsibility in business and society. At WU, young people learn the business and economics skills they need to contribute productively to facing today’s and tomorrow’s economic, social, legal, and ecological challenges using future-oriented expertise and responsible business behavior.

WU sees itself as an international university, as an important hub for global exchange, and as a place where students and teachers work together. Open-mindedness and diversity were already among the university’s key values at WU’s founding in 1898. WU is committed to the principles of fairness and equal opportunities, scientific integrity, academic freedom, and especially plurality in topics and methodology.

WU is a responsible university*. This means that WU not only accepts responsibility for the quality of its performance in research, teaching, and third mission activities, but also that it acts in a socially responsible manner in all that it does.

_{* As based on the six Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). WU has been a member of this network since 2015 and integrates PRME’s principles on sustainability and responsibility in the education of future managers in its teaching and research.}

Strategic Goals

WU makes a significant contribution to the international reputation of Vienna as a center of academic research and the nation’s university sector as a whole. WU recognizes its obligation to uphold and even raise its high standards in research and teaching.

One of WU’s key goals is to fulfill its mission as an educational institution on the basis of excellent research and research-led teaching. WU graduates have a wide range of skills and competences: well-founded expertise in business, economics, social sciences, and business law, and especially the ability to analyze complex problems on a solid scientific basis and develop sustainable solutions, but also strong social skills and a sense of independence and individual responsibility. WU graduates are also excellent team players with an international outlook, open-minded attitude, and the ability to reflect upon their actions.

WU’s goal in research is to deliver excellent research performance, generate new knowledge in the fields of business and economics, and create added value from its clear commitment to a plurality of disciplines. WU’s variety of business- and economics-related disciplines is the basis for meeting future challenges by ensuring a broad scope in the university’s research activities and discipline-specific approaches in the development of efficient and sustainable solutions to different problems. This plurality of disciplines also provides strong potential for innovation and creativity that makes it possible to continuously identify and address new, future-oriented topics in WU’s research and teaching activities. Excellence in research means that WU’s researchers are maintaining an intensive dialog with the scientific communities they are a part of and that they are making excellent contributions to the development of their disciplines. For this reason, support for junior researchers also has a high priority.

Establishing and maintaining an international network has always been very important to WU and will be taking on an even more important role in the future. Partnerships with around 240 international universities around the globe and memberships in networks like PIM, CEMS, or THEMIS encourage student mobility. WU also participates in other global networks like GBSN, allowing us to enter into an exchange with other international universities on responsibility in teaching and education.

WU’s researchers are involved in numerous joint projects with individual researchers around the world, resulting in many co-authored publications. WU faculty also participate in international calls for papers together with researchers from other internationally renowned universities. In addition, WU has also established a number of programs intended to strengthen our international network, for example the Fulbright-Hall Distinguished Chair, which brings two well-respected guest professors to WU from the USA every year.

As a responsible university, WU maintains contacts to other internationally renowned universities that are committed to the principles of responsible education and innovation (e.g. in the SIGMA and PRME networks). WU also cooperates with international organizations like the OECD, UNO, and UNIDO.

As Austria’s only university of economics and business, WU has an especially important role to play in this regard. WU graduates act in key positions in business, the economy, and society in general, giving them the opportunity to shape the future responsibly, which is one of the reasons why we try very hard to keep in touch with our alumni. WU also contributes actively to public discourse on business and economics, especially through social commitment, knowledge transfer, and in practical cooperations with the business community. WU is a sought-after partner in problem solving and for intensive exchange with non-academic organizations, including private businesses, the public sector, and nonprofit organizations.

As a modern, dynamic, knowledge-based organization, one of WU’s goals is to provide a high-quality workplace for all its employees. In those areas where it offers career development options, WU’s human resource policy is aimed at developing transparent, accessible models. Appropriate personnel development tools for both academic and administrative staff are in place that reflect the university’s increasing level of diversity. Performance evaluation systems for academic careers include not only research output, but also increasingly teaching quality and qualifications and social commitment. Support for junior researchers and encouraging faculty to achieve additional qualification have a high priority.