Erich Hödl

Erich Hödl was born on 11 May 1940 in Breitenfeld, Styria, Austria. After a technical secondary education in Graz he went to Paris in 1962, where he studied mathematics at the École des Arts et Métiers and worked on French aircraft development.

From 1963 to 1968 he studied at the Hochschule für Welthandel in Vienna, now the Vienna University of Economics and Business, earning his diploma and doctorate. Between 1966 and 1968 he worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna.

In 1968 Hödl joined the Technical University of Darmstadt, where he completed his habilitation in economics in 1973. In 1973 and 1974 he was a visiting scholar with Edmund Phelps at Columbia University. He held a visiting professorship at Heidelberg University in 1972 and 1973 and taught at Frankfurt in 1974, before being appointed professor of political economy at the University of Kassel in 1975.

In 1977 he became professor of economics at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, a chair he held until his retirement in 2005. He was a visiting professor in Vienna in 1978 and lectured in Moscow and Tashkent. He was vice rector from 1987 to 1991 and rector from 1991 to 1999, introducing pilot projects in financial autonomy and cost accounting and extending the university onto a former barracks site.

From 2000 to 2003 he was rector of Graz University of Technology, steering it through the introduction of the Austrian Universities Act 2002. He initiated the Forum Technik und Gesellschaft, which now has 40 institutional members from industry and business, and his term saw the founding of competence centres under the Kplus programme that became the COMET centres BEST and acib, the Virtual Vehicle research centre and the Polymer Competence Center Leoben. From 2003 to 2005 he advised the university on cooperation with industry.

He served on German federal expert bodies on environmental and technology policy, advised the governments of the Comoros and Ivory Coast for the UN conference on science and technology for development in 1978, chaired the Arbeitskreis Politische Ökonomie from 1984 to 1987, sat on the senate of the German Rectors' Conference from 1992 to 1999, chaired the quality assessment group of the European rectors' conference, sat on the WDR broadcasting council and on the Austrian Accreditation Council from 2005 to 2012. He was vice president of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts from 2005 to 2015 and a member of the World Academy of Art and Science.

Hödl kept close ties to his home region of Styria throughout decades of work in Germany, returning to Graz in 2000 to lead its technical university. After his term he remained connected to the university and was an honorary member of alumniTUGraz 1887 from 2005. He held an honorary doctorate.

Erich Hödl died on 3 November 2026, in his 87th year, at the age of 86. Graz University of Technology announced his death on 12 November 2026, and the news was reported by Austrian outlets including austria.com and 5 Minuten. The place and cause of death were not reported.

Hödl is remembered as a reforming university manager who brought financial autonomy and industry partnership into German and Austrian universities. Research centres founded during his time in Graz, such as Virtual Vehicle and acib, became internationally recognised. His books on stagnation, employment, environmental policy and European economic policy reflect his interest in linking economics with technology and society.