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Campus - 08.02.2013 - 00:00 

More room for teaching & research

The HSG Foundation (formerly HSG Alumni Foundation) has been able to acquire a property in Tellstrasse 2 thanks to a donation from the Ernst Göhner Foundation. The building is intended to be used for teaching and research from Autumn Semester 2013.

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8 February 2013. “This new building for teaching and research enables us to quickly improve teaching quality thanks to extramural initiative and support. I’m pleased that thanks to the donation of the Ernst Göhner Foundation and the joint action of all those involved, an effective contribution towards the alleviation of the HSG’s shortage of space could be made,” says Executive Director Markus Brönnimann.

At present, the University of St.Gallen (HSG) has more than 7,300 students; today’s campus capacity amounts to 5,000 to 5,500 students. Learning and teaching space per student is 2.2m2, which is very low in comparison with other universities and institutions of tertiary education.

Seminar and offices on six floors
The aim is to make use of the seminar rooms existing in this building for teaching, on the one hand, and to set up office space for researchers, on the other hand. A net surface available for this purpose amounts to 1,888m2 on six floors. This is tantamount to 13 seminar rooms with a total of 400 seats and about 18 office premises for researchers from institutes. This will also generate spatial proximity between research and teaching. The building, which was previously used by the University of Applied Sciences, will be ready by Autumn Semester 2013 without any major renovation work.

Negotiations were started in June 2012. The HSG Foundation was able to acquire the building and make it available to the University. The purchase was made possible thanks to a substantial donation from the Ernst Göhner Foundation. Thanks to this funding model, the HSG has very favourable terms of use. In addition, the HSG will be able to alleviate the acute shortage of space on campus with an addition to the planned provisional facilities.

From the HSG Alumni Foundation to the HSG Foundation
The HSG Alumni Foundation was renamed HSG Foundation as per 7 February, in order to place stronger emphasis on the partnership relations between HSG Alumni and the University and in order to exploit fund-raising synergies.

The HSG Foundation is an independent charitable foundation. It pools financial donations from private individuals and organisations to the University in order to support the latter’s development. In the last few years, foundations have become increasingly significant as funders of academia in the Swiss university landscape, too, as is shown by the ETH Zurich Foundation, the UZH Foundation (the foundation of the University of Zurich), the Basel University Foundation and the Foundation of the University of Lucerne.

“Universities are engaged in global competition today. The monies from the public purse are indispensable as a sound and reliable source of funds. Private funds additionally serve to enhance the University’s profile and teaching quality for students, and to improve the University’s position in international educational competition,” says President Thomas Bieger.

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