… in research and teaching is our dedication. 

• to provide ground for innovative and sustainable solutions in rock mechanics and tunnel engineering.
• to emphasize the interdisciplinary cooperation between rock mechanics, soil mechanics, and geology.
• to address the needs for industry 4.0 via digitalisation.
• to be a close partner to public and private stakeholders, contractors, and designers.
• to maintain close contact to the industry for an up-to-date education.
• to ensure practical and research-oriented teaching at its best.

• advancing deep and shallow tunnelling technology
• modelling and testing hard soil / soft rock
• use of underground space for storage and production of (thermal) energy
• constitutive modelling and laboratory testing of anisotropic rock mass
• rock mechanical aspects of landslides and rock fall
• data science for geotechnical engineering

• numerical modelling using latest releases of software (e.g, Itasca, Plaxis, Rocscience, Comsol) 
• use of BIM developments for teaching and research
• fully equipped rock mechanical laboratory
• AI/ML modelling including supervised, unsupervised, and reinforced learning

With the intention to create interdisciplinary cooperation in the fields of geotechnics, research and teaching in 1994 the geotechnical Institutes Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Rock Mechanics and Tunnelling as well as Applied Geosciences formed the "Gruppe Geotechnik Graz" (GGG).

As a logical consequence of their long-term cooperation Uni Graz and TU Graz have initiated the NAWI Graz Geocenter in 2015. At present, the following institutes are part of the NAWI Graz Geocenter:

• Institute of Applied Geosciences (TU Graz, two disciplines)
• Institute of Rock Mechanics and Tunnelling (TU Graz)
• Institute of Soil Mechanics, Foundation Engineering and Computational Geotechnics (TU Graz) and
• Institute of Earth Sciences (Uni Graz, four disciplines)