This is a guest blog post written by Desmond Gibney, Assistant Professor of Accounting and Finance in National College of Ireland’s School of Business and Social Sciences.
In May 2026, I spent a week in Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Business School in Linz, Austria. This was part of the Erasmus+ programme, which provides staff working in higher education institutions in the EU with the opportunity to train in another participating institution.
Where
Linz is Austria’s third-largest city and is the capital of Upper Austria. It is located on the river Danube, surrounded by forests and hills and is one hour by train from Vienna. Linz is home to the local brew Linzer Bier, and to an Irish bar The Old Dubliner! JKU is a public university, founded in 1966 and has 27,000 students, of whom 20% are international students. JKU Business School is “a regionally rooted academic center with an international focus”. The university campus is a 20-minute tram ride from Linz city centre, with a tram stop at the main campus entrance. A centrepiece of the campus is a lake beside Kepler Hall.
Why Linz?
My host for the week in Linz was Prof Martin Hiebl, Professor of Management Accounting and Control, and also Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Business School. Prof Hiebl was one of my co-authors on a 2024 paper published in Management & Organizational History. The reason I chose JKU for my Erasmus+ exchange was to observe and learn about the Top Facts programme that Martin started in 2025.
Top Facts
Top Facts (Top Finance and Accounting students) is a talent development programme for high-performing accounting and finance students. Through structured participation by industry professionals embedded within the School, it provides skills and professional contacts for the students from the delivery of workshops by firms such as KPMG (a Big 4 accounting firm), Raiffeisenlandesbank (a bank), Greiner (a plastics manufacturer), Voestalpine (a steel manufacturer), and Red Bull (they give you wiiings, apparently!). These workshops take place mainly on day-long site visits to the firms. Participating students also undertake a day-long on-campus workshop in advanced Excel skills.
My Week in Linz
I stayed in the Sommerhaus hotel on-campus, which is part of the international student centre. It had everything you’d expect from a hotel, as well as something I didn’t expect: a piano located directly outside my bedroom door! Thankfully nobody decided to play the piano any night!
An eye-catching feature of the new Business School building were the study areas on each floor for group study by students, equipped with seating, table and all the necessary audio-visual technology (these study areas are colloquially referred to as the “shower curtains”!).
All of the colleagues I met in the department were very welcoming and helpful. There was a very collegial atmosphere, and each day a group of academic and administration staff went to lunch together in Mensa (cafeteria), a short walk across campus past the lake. And I shared an office with its own balcony!
I met with the recruiters in KPMG, and heard their experiences of the Top Facts programme, how it was delivered by KPMG, as well as insights into recruitment for accounting and finance graduates and the skills sought for accounting careers. I also had a focus group with some of the students participating in Top Facts. The students were very friendly and engaging; and their experiences were uniformly positive. They valued the opportunities provided by the programme to engage in learning through case studies about the different industries represented, the advanced Excel skills developed on the programme, as well as the benefits of making useful contacts with recruiters. A meeting with a partner in PwC Linz, who are not part of the Top Facts programme, was kindly facilitated by NCI graduate Eoin Tippins, a partner in PwC Dublin.
A busy final day!
My final full day in Linz was by far the busiest! It started with an 8am meeting in the PwC offices in the city, followed by a taxi that never arrived, a dash to the university campus for the start of the Excel workshop (not helped by me confusing Kepler Hall with Kepler Building!), the focus group with Top Facts participants, sitting in on two doctoral colloquia, lunch in Mensa with colleagues, delivering a research seminar to Business School colleagues on my latest research on social equity in capital budgeting, followed by a presentation made by Prof Hiebl of a nice gift, and the obligatory group photo! And one more thing I learnt; Austrians show their approval in meetings, not by applause, but by rapping their knuckles on the table!
Some down-time
During my free weekend, I took the opportunity to visit Vienna, a place that had been on my bucket list for a long time! I was particularly keen to see the Palais Ephrussi, which features in Edmund de Waal’s family memoir “The Hare with Amber Eyes”. It occupies one whole block on the Ringstrasse, and was home to the Ephrussi family until they fled in 1938.
Apart from the famous Café Sacher, the Viennese coffeehouses didn’t perhaps quite live up to expectations. But St Stephen’s Cathedral and The Belvedere Palace and Gardens (one stop away by train from Wien Hauptbahnhof) are very impressive.
And it’s always good to catch up with someone from home! Paul, one of the players from my basketball club, is nearing the end of his year-long Erasmus in JKU as part of his undergrad studies, and played for the JKU Astros basketball team. He showed me around the nearby countryside during a long walk on the hottest day of my visit!
Next steps
My week flew by, and it was time to return home (appropriately by following the sign for Gate DG in Vienna airport!) For National College of Ireland, my Erasmus+ exchange provides an opportunity to progress one of the metrics from the five-year strategic plan for 2022-2027, namely to have “strong relationships with employers who provide input to programme design, accreditation, placements, graduate employment and research partnerships” (“What Success Looks Like for NCI in 5 Years’ Time”, NCI Strategic Plan 2002-2027, page 16).
I learnt a lot during my time in JKU and made many useful connections. Erasmus+ is a great opportunity for NCI staff, and thanks to Prof Breda McTaggart (Dean of School of Business and Social Sciences) for supporting my Erasmus+ exchange, and Cristina Pons (Academic Partnership Manager) for all her assistance in making things run smoothly.
National College of Ireland holds an Erasmus Charter of Higher Education 2021-2027 which empowers our students and staff to experience the opportunity of a lifetime that will broaden horizons both academically and personally.
