History

The present Institute of Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering was founded in 1950 as "Lehrkanzel und Institut für Grundlagen der Elektrotechnik und Theoretische Elektrotechnik". Until then, only the "Lehrkanzel für Bau und Betrieb elektrischer Anlagen and the "Lehrkanzel für Allgemeine Elektrotechnik (und Elektromaschinenbau had been established at the “Technische Hochschule Graz”. In 1975, the new University Organization Act was introduced. The Faculty of Electrical Engineering, previously attached to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, was founded and the “Technische Hochschule” became a Technical University. The institute was renamed Institute of Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering (IGTE), the same name as the corresponding institute at the Vienna University of Technology, in June 1983.

The intensive research work in the field of numerical field computation led to the fact that since the mid-80's the IGTE became increasingly internationally visible and recognized. The largest international conference on the computation of electromagnetic fields --  COMPUMAG (International Conference on the Computation of Electromagnetic Fields) -- took place 1987 in Graz, organized by  IGTE.  Through this commitment, the IGTE Team has already established itself in the 1990s as one of the internationally leading groups in the scientific field of Computational Electromagnetics.

Heads of the institute:

• Manfred Kaltenbacher: since 2020
• Oszkar Biro: 2004 - 2019
• Kurt Preis: 1998 - 2003
• Kurt Richter: 1975 - 1998
• Peter Klaudy: 1950 - 1973