ÖH and works council at MCI protest against planned downsizing of new campus building

The Chair of the MCI Works Council (BR) and the Chair of the university represantation (ÖH) at MCI have issued an urgent appeal to the press:

ÖH Chair Laura Flür: "For many years, the MCI has been promised the imminent MCI Campus in repeated Sunday speeches. For just as many years, however, this has been repeatedly played back and forth by politicians and questioned in the media."

BR Chairman Johannes Dickel: "Suddenly, extra costs of 30 million euros appear out of the blue, and this argument is used to reduce the size of the new campus from an already tight 126,000m3 to 111,000m3. This drastically shrinks the indoor space.

This significantly damages the quality of life and work for staff and students on campus. Unfortunately, this also deprives the MCI of opportunities to make it an attractive place to research, study, work and found, to position itself internationally and to develop it further."

The MCI Works Council and MCI students have the following questions:

• Where do the suddenly claimed additional costs come from?

• Who is reviews them?
• Why do they not ask for external experts or comparative offers in order to check the plausibility of the alleged costs?
• Shouldn't the "competitive dialog" that was vehemently promoted to be a new award procedure ensure that something like this can't happen?
• Weren't the companies that are now arguing the additional costs involved in the architectural competition, and had found the winning project to be functional and within budget?
• Didn't the very same companies carry out the further planning?
• Why should such inconsistencies suddenly come at the expense of students and staff as well as the future development opportunities of the MCI as a renowned university, a major science and education location and an attractive employer?
• Don't all scientific studies and experiences show that investments in research, technology, innovation and education are indispensable to secure competitiveness and prosperity and to open up future perspectives for the youth?
• Doesn't the MCI offer degree programs, continuing education courses and research services that are in particularly high demand on the labor market and so important for the location?
• Why do they want to make massive cutbacks in the urgently needed new campus of the MCI, which has developed successfully and scandal-free since its founding and has produced nothing but good news for more than 25 years?

Laura Flür and Johannes Dickel continue: "The most expensive way to build is to build wrong. We cannot accept that any wrong political or business decisions are carried out at the expense of the MCI's dedicated employees and students."

Inquiries:

• Johannes Dickel, johannes.dickel@mci.edu
• Laura Flür, vorsitz@oeh-mci.at