Obergurgl university centre celebrates 75 years of research and hospitality

The University of Innsbruck’s University Centre Obergurgl, a research and accommodation centre in the Ötztal valley, has marked 75 years of linking alpine sports, science and tourism, ORF reports.

The centre opened in 1951 as an outpost of the University of Innsbruck at an altitude of 1,940 metres. It was founded by Tyrolean Wolfgang “Wolf” Burger, who wanted to combine alpine sports, research and tourism.

Many people in Tyrol know the old customs houses on a ridge in the upper Ötztal mainly as a federal sports centre, where numerous ski instructors completed their training. For 75 years, however, the University of Innsbruck has also operated an alpine research station and accommodation business there.

“Wolf” Burger wrote that the goal was to promote mountaineering, alpine skiing and high-mountain science with guests from all European countries and every continent. Research at the centre now includes glaciers and climate, geology, geography, microbiology and sports medicine.

“This place was internationally sought after,” Burger’s daughter Eva Burger told ORF Tirol. Scientists from a wide range of disciplines came to Obergurgl, including doctors studying the effects of high-altitude sports on health, as well as biologists and geologists. Burger, who was born in 1956, said she joined field excursions there as a teenager and greatly enjoyed them.

Her father directed both the federal sports centre and the alpine research station until 1959.

Discovery with lasting medical impact

The research station’s 75-year history has produced notable findings. In 1959, two microbiologists discovered a microfungus in a moor in the nearby Rotmoos valley. The substance cyclosporin A was later found in the fungus and is still used after transplants to reduce rejection reactions, according to Nikolaus Schallhart, scientific coordinator of the Alpine Research Station.

The station also conducts long-term measurements using sensors in the terrain. Hochebenkar is home to one of the best-studied rock glaciers in the world, Schallhart said. A rock glacier is an obvious form of permafrost, and its ice is melting as a result of global warming. This can quickly make the rock glacier unstable and affect hiking infrastructure below. Measurements there began in 1938.

Researchers are also studying how plants and animals recolonise areas released by retreating glaciers. Contrary to earlier assumptions, predatory animals such as spiders and ground beetles are among the first to settle there.

The centre has studied the effects of grazing on plant diversity for 20 years. Its findings indicate that diversity is lower on ungrazed land than on land used by grazing animals. Other work examines how areas exposed by climate-driven glacier retreat develop.

In the summer months, Schallhart takes weekly samples from Tyrol’s highest pollen trap. The station aims to join a Europe-wide association through its long-term monitoring programme.

The university location was reorganised in 2004 under then Vice-Rector for Research Tilmann Märk, who later became rector. A heritage-protected renovation included lecture halls and seminar rooms.