A new, modern, digital look: plus.ac.at

The Rector’s Column I 31.03.2021

The PLUS revamps website and strengthens communication strategy.

Our University has many faces. Our strength lies in the diversity of our students, study programmes, trainees, teachers and administrative staff. Today, we are launching a new digital look: www.plus.ac.at. The website’s relaunch is complete. We hope that the revamped website meets your expectations and contributes to increasing the visibility and popularity of the PLUS.

Following the new design of our University’s brand “The Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. PLUS. Competence for Tomorrow”, along with important decisions on further structural developments, now comes the realignment of our digital external appearance: plus.ac.at is online and more than just a new website. It corresponds with how we would like to portray ourselves in our external communication.

The new website aims to show our efforts in offering students the best study conditions, excellent research conditions for our academics and an attractive working environment for our employees. We want to promote the University’s assets as a modern, well-established and responsible research and educational institution in the Salzburg region and beyond.

Plus.ac.at presents the entire range of services offered by our University in a more visually engaging way. The new website is now up and running; this is thanks to the Department of Communication and Fundraising and IT Services, who coordinated the project, and to the outstanding efforts of several hundred administrators in our faculties, study and administrative departments, centres and in numerous other institutions. The website focuses on highlighting our comprehensive study offer, and is geared to address a wider public, including an international audience. We have updated and restructured our content. User-friendliness and the presentation of the PLUS’s diversity have been top priorities.

Plus.ac.at is more than just a digital business card. It is essentially a blueprint. With the renewal of the brand identity, we have committed ourselves to strengthening communication across the University. The new website is the central platform for this. It thrives on efficient interdisciplinary cooperation. This initiated the formation of PLUS editorial groups, which were formed last year.

To name a few examples from our communicative practice: The “International” editorial group has developed the “Science Twitter” manual and is strengthening international media work with colleagues at the PLUS Desk. The editorial group “Sustainability” has worked on the successful “Walk the Talk” campaign, which highlights the PLUS’s environmentally conscious efforts. The editorial groups “IDA Lab” and “Digital Analytic Science” are drawing up a communication strategy to better position the PLUS as an excellent centre for digital sciences. These editorial groups can now use plus.ac.at as a new, prominent channel to not only increase the attractiveness and visibility of the PLUS, but also to consolidate these communication initiatives.

The editorial groups’ work and their use of our various digital platforms will follow the clear concepts outlined by our four guiding principles: “Art in Context” as a holistic view of academia and art, “Development & Sustainability” for long-term, responsible future perspectives, “Digital Life” as a joint, University-wide theme, and “Health & Mind”, which integrates physical and mental well-being.

Plus.ac.at is a very important milestone for the PLUS’s digitalisation strategy. Whilst the project is headed by our IT Services, it can only succeed if everyone to the cause of shaping studying, teaching and working conditions in a transformed world.

Plus.ac.at can be seen as an important strategic and communicative building block. It is our modern digital look which shows it is well worth studying, teaching and working at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg.

Hendrik Lehnert