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MU celebrates 20 years since start of campus construction

The Bohunice University Campus is now a modern complex housing three faculties of Masaryk University and several research institutions, including CEITEC MU. Its construction began twenty years ago with a groundbreaking ceremony on 22 November 2004.

The Bohunice University Campus

Covering forty-two hectares, the campus is the largest complex of its kind in Central Europe. The project was funded by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in 2000 and designed by Brno-based A PLUS architects. The Campus is adjacent to the University Hospital Brno, the Moravian Provincial Archive and the Campus Square shopping centre.

The modern education and research and development centre for five thousand students and around one thousand employees has grown gradually. In four phases over the years, the campus became home to the Faculty of Medicine, most of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Sports Studies.

The laying of the foundation stone of UKB on 22 November 2004.

The groundbreaking ceremony on 22 November 2004 was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, the South Moravian Region, the City of Brno, representatives of regional political and cultural institutions, and guests from Czech universities. “We are delighted to have successfully launched a project that is unique in Czech higher education and whose viability was doubted by many,” said then Rector Petr Fiala on the occasion.

The total cost for the period 2002-2006 was estimated at CZK 3.9 billion. The first part of the campus has been in use since September 2005. Two years later, in September 2007, the buildings and infrastructure of the Blue and Red Phases were inaugurated and the Yellow Phase – the construction of sports halls – began. The remaining buildings were then constructed in the Green Phase from 2008. The cost of these phases was estimated at more than CZK 1.5 billion. Two years later, in September 2010, the entire Bohunice University campus was officially opened.

Start of construction of the UKB in 2004.

The Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) also became part of the Bohunice Campus. Its construction began in September 2012 with the laying of the foundation stone and the construction of two new buildings and a glass oval behind the Faculty of Sports Studies, which symbolically closed the construction of the campus for a time. The total budget of the CEITEC project was CZK 5.246 billion.

Today, the Campus also includes the RECETOX Centre of Excellence in Environmental Health Sciences, the Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses and the Simulation Centre of the MU Faculty of Medicine (SIMU). From 2023 (the foundation stone of the building was laid on 11 March 2024), the MUNI BioPharma Hub, a strategic project of Masaryk University, is being built on the Campus. The building will be used, among others, by students of the Faculty of Pharmacy.

The Campus is centred around Kamenice Street and nearby streets Netroufalky and Studentská. The campus consists of two parts connected by a footbridge. Building A22, which houses the main entrance with reception and auditorium, is directly connected by a bridge to the commercial centre across the road, consisting of the Campus Square shopping centre. The footbridge is designated corridor CS. Connecting the greater part of the Campus are the broad corridors BUC South, closer to the University Hospital, which connects the various departments of the Faculty of Medicine, and the corridor BUC Centre, which connects a number of science departments and connects via a footbridge to the Morphology Centre and SIMU.

An important nodal point is the vertical line formed by the Department of Biochemistry, which is connected to the University Hospital Brno on one side by a footbridge and to CEITEC on the other side by another footbridge over Kamenice Street, and is connected to the third corridor BUC North. This starts at the Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Sports Studies and connects the sports halls and pavilions with the rest of the campus. Access to the Bohunice University Campus has been greatly facilitated by the construction of the tramway, which will open in 2022.