Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Human capital 
Human capital is defined as the sum total of all 
knowledge and skills within the population that can 
be put to use in the production process. This includes 
formal educational and training qualifications as well 
as informal knowledge and skills. In other words, rich 
veins of human capital can also be particularly fertile 
sources of research and innovation. 
The focus below is on human capital in society, 
which is crucial for the innovation capability. This is 
48 See World Economic Forum (2020b).
49 See OECD (2019a).
represented by two indicators: firstly, the percentage 
of the population with tertiary education is analysed 
and compared in order to quantify the proportion of 
potential employees with higher education degrees. 
This is because, theoretically speaking, tertiary edu-
cation empowers people to innovate to a greater ex-
tent than other educational pathways. Secondly, an-
other indicator reports on graduates in STEM and ICT 
subjects in order to provide a separate analysis of 
high-tech skills, which are particularly important – 
especially given the onward march of digitalisation. 
An excursus discusses social mobility in Austria and 
how it might influence capability to innovate. The de-
gree of social mobility in a society determines the 
extent to which its available human capital can be 
tapped. Socially righteous societies utilise all their 
talents, which boosts their capability to innovate. 
Austria’s social mobility is analysed using the World 
Economic Forum’s Global Social Mobility Index,
48
whereas the first two human capital indicators are 
taken from the OECD’s “Education at a Glance 2019” 
report.
49
Fig. 1-21 shows the percentage of 25- to 64-year-
olds with a tertiary education degree. This includes 
both “short-cycle tertiary education” (e.g. a degree 
from a College for Higher Vocational Education (BHS) 
or a university or other higher education institution 
course) and bachelor’s and master’s degrees and 
equivalent qualifications as well as PhDs. Austria’s 
score of 33% puts it in the mid-range in an interna-
tional comparison. Degrees from short-cycle tertiary 
education make up nearly half of these, at 15%. The 
clear leaders in the international comparison, taking 
account of all tertiary education degrees, are Canada 
(58%), the USA (47%) and Australia (46%). Note that 
the comparative quantitative presentation of tertiary 
education should not be interpreted as the qualita-
tive difference between the education systems of 
the various countries. 
Digitalisation is helping to transform the activities 

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