Czech Technical University in Prague

In 1705, Christian Josef Willenberg asked Emperor Leopold I for permission to teach "the art of engineering". Later, the emperor's only son, who succeeded him on the throne in 1707 as Joseph I, ordered the Czech state of Prague to provide engineering education. For various reasons, the request was not implemented for some time. However, in October 1716, Willenberg repeated the request. Finally, on 9 November 1717, a decree by the Czech state granted Willenberg the first engineering professorship in Central Europe (formally as part of University of Prague). On 7 January 1718, he began teaching.

Initially, Willenberg started teaching only 12 students in his own apartment (six barons, four knights, and two burghers), but gradually students proliferated (in 1779, there were around 200) and they started studying in more suitable premises. Initially, the training focused mainly on the military. Teaching in the first year lasted one hour per day; in the second year, almost two.

The successor of Willenberg was Johann Ferdinand Schor, builder of hydraulic structures in the basin of the Vltava and author of textbooks used at the school of mathematics. He began under Willenberg's leadership by teaching optics, perspectivity, technical drawing and geography. The third was professor František Antonín Herget, who mainly focused on civil engineering, particularly construction.

In September 1776, Maria Theresa allowed Herget to use the Clementinum building; in 1786, the school moved to the new and better building. In 1787, the School of Engineering was established at the decree of Emperor Joseph II.

The CTU is the best technical university in the Czech Republic. In 2010, in the world rating of THES-QS universities in the category of technical sciences, the CTU took the 121st place, in the category of natural sciences – 246th place.[5] In 2018, Czech Technical University was ranked as 220th in Engineering and Technology in the QS World University Rankings.[6]

Students apply to faculty. Each faculty has different admissions requirements. Acceptance rate ranges from 52.32% (Faculty of Information Technology) to 81.51% (Faculty of Transportation Sciences).[7] The percentage of international students grew from 2.5% in 2000 to 16.4% in 2017.[8][9]

Due to the pace and difficulty of CTU coursework, high percentage of students fail to complete first year of their studies. First year failure rates range from 23% (Faculty of Civil Engineering) to 47% (Faculty of Information Technology).[10] Overall, only 48% of enrolled undergraduate students end up graduating.

CTU has international agreements with 484 foreign universities. Many of them are ranked in the first hundred in QS World University Rankings such as National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Purdue University, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Delft University of Technology, KU Leuven or Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.

CTU has many bilateral agreements with universities outside of Europe. The most sought after universities are from Canada, Australia, Singapore, United States and Japan. That said, every year many students choose to study in attractive destinations such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Costa Rica, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Russia or Taiwan.

CTU also participates in the European programmes Erasmus and Leonardo.[5]

CTU has currently over 3500 international students from 117 countries. About 750 of them are an exchange students. One of the organizations that takes care of international students is International Student Club (ISC), which organizes Buddy Programme and extra-curricular activities.

CTU has currently 21 agreements with universities such as Technical University of Munich, RWTH Aachen or Trinity College Dublin.