In 1879, during the development of Hungary’s public education system, the Minister of Religion and Public Education, Ágoston Trefort, founded the first legal predecessor of the institution, the Budapest State Central Industrial Office. The teachers of the institution, such as Dániel Arany, Dr. Jenő Egerváry, Ödön Faragó, Ödon Lencz, Gusztáv Klemp, Lajos Petrik, as well as famous former students, such as József Galamb, greatly contributed to the development of the economy, as well as the international reputation of our institution. Nine years later, our other legal predecessor, the Vocational School of Mechanics and Great Industry, was established.
Based on Act LII of 1999, the Budapest Polytechnic was established as of January 1, 2000. Its predecessors were Bánki Donát Polytechnic, Kandó Kálmán Polytechnic, and the Light Industry Polytechnic. As part of the integration process and the parallel faculty accreditation procedure, the institution was reorganized into a five-faculty educational establishment, and training began shortly thereafter.
In its meeting on September 7, 2009, the Senate of Budapest Polytechnic determined that the institution had met the legal criteria for using the title of university. Based on this, and with the support of the Economic Council and the Senate, the leadership of the Polytechnic initiated—through the Minister of Education and Culture—a request to the Hungarian National Assembly, under Section 18 of the Higher Education Act, to grant the institution university status, and Óbuda University was created in its current form.