In 1945, by decision of the President of the Republic, VSB was relocated from Příbram to Ostrava, marking the beginning of its development.
Over time, it grew into a large university with seven faculties and a multifunctional campus. To its traditional mining and metallurgy fields, it gradually added mechanical and civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, economics, and safety engineering. The number of students increased from hundreds to thousands.
“We commemorate this anniversary with pride and respect for the work of our predecessors, who managed to gradually build in Ostrava a respected institution – the third largest technical university in the Czech Republic. The world is changing, but the importance of technical education is not declining; on the contrary, it is growing. And we are doing everything we can to provide our students with the best possible conditions,” said Igor Ivan, Rector of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava.
The relocation of VSB from Příbram to Ostrava was the culmination of long-standing discussions that began as early as 1904, when the German part of the faculty and students proposed moving the school to northern Bohemia. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the Czech faculty instead advocated for its transfer to Prague. After World War II, most of the academic community still preferred the capital, but the decisive voice belonged to the Minister of Education, Zdeněk Nejedlý. He prioritized strategic, industrial, and political factors and chose Moravian Ostrava — the developing industrial heart of the republic — as the school’s new seat, as a counterbalance to the concentration of higher education institutions in Prague.
Despite resistance from the town of Příbram, some students, and part of the faculty, the relocation of VSB was officially confirmed by a decree of President Edvard Beneš in September 1945. The enrollment records at the time reflected great student interest: 113 students enrolled in metallurgy and 208 in mining. Classes in Ostrava began on November 1, 1945, in provisional facilities. In 1951, VSB was divided into three faculties (Mining, Metallurgy, and Mining Engineering). After 1960, discussions began about moving the school from the city center to Poruba.
The construction of the campus in Ostrava-Poruba was divided into three stages, the first of which began in 1964 with the construction of two dormitory buildings and a student canteen. The construction of the academic part started in 1973 and, in addition to the Rector’s Office — the dominant building of the university district — included department buildings, lecture halls, and laboratories. In the 1970s and 1980s, the complex was expanded with more dormitories, a new canteen, a geological pavilion, and a central library.
In the new millennium, the campus was complemented by a university auditorium, which added much-needed social and teaching spaces. In 2012, construction began on the new building of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; in 2014, the supercomputing center building was added, followed by the modern Center for Energy and Environmental Technologies and a new building for the Faculty of Economics.
Fields, programs, and faculties also evolved. The Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science were established. The transformation of VSB into a polytechnical university was completed in 1995 by changing its name to VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. Later, the Faculty of Civil Engineering was founded, and the youngest faculty is the Faculty of Safety Engineering.
The relocation to Ostrava was a key step in the development of the region and in the advancement of technical higher education, making it more accessible to students particularly from Moravia and Silesia, but also from Slovakia. Today, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava is one of the leading technical universities in Central Europe, with seven faculties and more than 13,000 students.
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Caricature depicting the struggle over the location of VSB (Archive of VSB–TUO)
 a prof. Rudolf Jirkovsky (vpravo) prebiraji se zastupci mesta Moravske Ostravy v roce 1945 budov.jpg?attachmentId=4891&image=true)
Rector Prof. František Čechura (left) and Prof. Rudolf Jirkovský (right) taking over buildings together with representatives of the city of Moravská Ostrava in 1945.
 na fotografii z roku 1945 (Archiv Kancelare prezi.jpg?attachmentId=4892&image=true)
Building of the Czech Business Academy in Moravská Ostrava (former Faculty of Economics of VSB–TUO) in a photograph from 1945.
The original decree of President Dr. Edvard Beneš on the relocation of VSB from Příbram to Moravská Ostrava.