Innovation and Innovation Policy in Austria 

Overview of Innovation Policy

Since joining the EU came onto the national agenda, Austria has made significant strides towards reaching EU levels of R&D activity. Based on low-R&D-intensive industries and with a structural bias towards SMEs, the Austrian economy has first approached, and recently exceeded the EU average in R&D intensity. Looking at the composition of R&D expenditures in Austria reveals some interesting developments. Beside the continuous overall growth of financial resources made available for R&Dactivities, the distribution of different financial sources has changed over time. Whereas the relative share of public sources (Federal/States) has decreased over time, the business sector has substantially increased its share. Most interesting is the sharp increase of financial inflow from foreign countries.

The basic strength of the Austrian innovation system lies in the strong R&D performance of small and medium-sized enterprises coupled with a few successful enterprises in niche markets. Although Austria scores remarkably well on a number of key economic indicators, it still lags behind the EU average in terms of venture capital, S&E graduates, and high-tech patents.

At the federal level the three main players in science and technology policy are the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Labour and the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. The latter is responsible for universities and education in Austria. Both the former are working on research and innovation in the enterprise sector and supporting institutions.

Austrian innovation policy intends to achieve an R&D expenditure of 2.5 percent of GDP by the year 2006. To achieve this goal a number of measures have been taken.

1. The government additionally appropriated 508 million euro for the 2000-03 period and 600 million euro for the 2004-06 period. The funds are allocated to promotion measures based on a recommendation by the Council for Research and Technology development.
2. The research promotion system was streamlined, resulting in two major research promotion institutions (AWS, FFG)
3. Additional funds will be distributed by the ‘National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development’, which will concentrate on middle- and long-term goals and will distribute approximately 125 Million euro each year.
4. For the 2006 to 2010 period funding of € 1 billion will be allocated to science and technology in addition to the funds in the regular budgets.

Who Is Who

Senior Official(s) for Austria
Josef Mandl
Correspondents for Austria
Rahel Falk
Klaus Friesenbichler
Andreas Reinstaller
Fabian Unterlass




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Innovation Performance

 Performance in Innovation Scoreboard 2008

Find Out More

 List of relevant websites