The article is optional

There is no grammatical rule; as Svartvik explains (paragraph 175), in unique cases the article is optional. That means we have to go by common practices.

The practice is as follows:

The Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT)

• The official seal is for "Massachusets Institute of Technology" - no "the"
• The university's charter uses the article in lower case only, to demonstrate that it is not part of the official title.
• The application forms and the other official documentation always exclude the article in the header
• The website often exluces the article. However, it does use the article when MIT figures as a grammatical subject. This is probably because the writer thinks the article implies formality.

California Instiutute of Technology (Caltech)

• The official seal is for "California Institute of Technology" - no "the"
• The article is never used, even when Caltech figures as a grammatical subject.

Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)

• The article is almost never used, even when Georgia Tech figures as a grammatical subject. The abbreviated form is used as often as possible.
• I have found one example when the article is used, and that is at the start of a document. It's not a general pattern.

To me that means the weight is on the article-less form.

We can also decide that there are other reasons for keeping an article. However, as Blekinge Tekniska has neither a significant historical justification for the article nor a translational justification (ex. an article in the original Swedish), I don't see any such reasons.

Michael Davis, BTH