Euro visions: Technology made beneficial to society
Euro visions: Technology made beneficial to society
https://wonkhe.com/blogs/euro-visions/
Publish Date: 2026-05-17 08:06:00
Source Domain: wonkhe.com
I’ve been thinking a lot about scaffolding this week.
One reason is that when I booked my little pension in Gramatneusiedl, what the website didn’t say is that extensive building work would be going on, which at various points has given me brown tap water, a stunning headache, and stunning views of an Austrian builder’s backside.
Another is that I somehow managed to get a tram in the wrong direction to the Wiener Stadthalle for Semi Final 2 on Thursday, and didn’t notice for at least ten stops. By the time I got into the arena, I ended up stood next to a bunch of grumpy and bizarrely tall Czechia fans with a lovely view of a load of scaffolding holding up the side of the stage and a boom camera that I thought was going to slide my head off if the operator wasn’t concentrating.
Judging by the wider quality of the production this year from ORF, I think I was reasonable in rating it high on my risk register.
But the main reason for thinking a lot about scaffolding is the mooching around I’ve been doing while I’m in Vienna into the academic and wider student experience at the two big universities in the city – the University of Vienna, and the technical university, TU Wien.
Both have it in two layers. There’s the academic kind – what the curriculum hangs off that shapes what students are studying. And there’s the kind that sits around it – a layer of student-run activity that is older, more creative and more expansive than we might see in the UK.
The two do different work, but they hold each other up. Take one away and the rest goes wobbly.
Stefania
Let’s imagine you’re Stefan, who I met and is on the University of Vienna’s Business Administration bachelors – the country’s largest general-management programme, with around 449 entrants a year.
The first thing you spot is that of the 180 ECTS credits (ie 360 in the UK), thirty are open – students can fill the slot with one of dozens of pre-bundled extension curricula drawn…
