Professor Widmer, a recipient of the prestigious Austrian Wittgenstein Award, will also play a key role in the new Center for Arts and Sciences at the Vienna Postal Savings Bank building in Vienna. The offices there provide space for the “Alliance for Creative Innovation” recently forged by the University of Applied Arts and the JKU.

Prof. Gerhard Widmer is a highly sought-after expert in the field of Artificial Intelligence and had received an offer by a large Austrian university. Rector Lukas was able to successfully negotiate with Prof. Widmer and the new JKU location in Vienna also played a key role. Rector Lukas added: "Gerhard Widmer is predestined to contribute to the new Center for Arts and Sciences in the Vienna Postal Savings Bank building. His research in the field of computational perception, his way of thinking, and his approach and references to music will certainly shape the alliance for creative innovation between the JKU and its like-minded partners. Scientific knowledge can only become truly innovative through its social, economic or artistic context." In this regard, Rector Lukas also referred to the manifesto "Innovation through Universitas" published last week by the JKU and its like-minded partners.

As a university, we are repeatedly confronted with the fact that many of our outstanding faculty members receive offers both from institutions in Austria and also from abroad. "Our goal to make our university as attractive as possible so that we can make comprehensive and attractive offers and, in many respects, not only retain but also attract outstanding faculty members. This also includes current campus enhancement plans to create a unique environment to support learning, working and studying. We have now added a new inspiring location in Vienna as well."

Born in 1961, Gerhard Widmer studied computer science at the TU Vienna and computer science and music at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA). He has been a university professor and head of the Institute for Computational Perception at the Johannes Kepler University Linz since 2004. Gerhard Widmer is a globally recognized pioneer for interdisciplinary research at the interface between computer science, artificial intelligence and music. As a recipient of many national and international awards for his work - including the 2009 Wittgenstein Award and the 2015 European Research Council's ERC Advanced Grant - Gerhard Widmer remarked: "For me, the Johannes Kepler University provides outstanding conditions - both in terms of research projects and education - especially with a very clear perspective of AI in Vienna. The new Artificial Intelligence degree program and future prospects to work closely with like-minded partners means there are completely new life-fulling tasks to pursue."