EUR 2BN AACHEN CAMPUS
[EDIT/EDU: Aachen, February 18] ‘This is the project of the century,’ said Ernst Schmachtenburg, the Rector of the university. On the technology campus, economics and science will work together closely linked to research. ‘Aachen is pointing the way to the future of our country,’ said Rütgers. The site will have two built areas with offices, halls, laboratories, and areas for further education, as well as a considerable infrastructure, including a hotel, sports facilities, kindergartens, businesses and a conference center. In the final phase in 2017, 250 businesses and research institutes will settle here and work together on 19 areas of focus. The partners in this great project are the RWTH University in Aachen (95%) and the City of Aachen (5%). The majority of the buildings will established by investors and one of the first new buildings will be a center for biomedical technology in the direct vicinity of the university hospital. The first clusters will include: production, technology, logistics, environment-friendly energy technology and biomedical technology, in order to turn the new university into a world leading technological university. An example to be followed is the initiative taken by Stanford in 1951 when it set up a center for semiconductor research from which Silicon Valley grew. The City of Aachen looks upon the campus as the most important project in the process of structural change that has been ongoing in the region since 1951, transforming the region from a center of mining and industry to a center of scientific R&D. Aachen will derive enormous benefit from it.
Over the next seven years, a EUR 2bn campus is to rise in Aachen. The Chief Minister of North-Rhine Westphalia, Jürgen Rütgers, turned the first spade to start the construction at the 800,000m2 site of RWTH Aachen Campus. It will become the biggest research site in Europe, and provide 10,000 new jobs.
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