Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

participations, of which 90 are in the area of ICT).
For non-university research institutions there is a 
more even distribution of funding acquired across 
the three pillars, as a result of the broad heterogene-
ity of this type of institution (from institutions that 
concentrate on basic research, such as the Austrian 
Academy of Sciences (OeAW), to very applica-
tion-oriented research centres). For these institu-
tions the most important pillar is “Societal Challeng-
es”, with €156.5 million (553 participations), followed 
by “Industrial Leadership” with €95.5 million (200 
participations) and “Excellent Science” with €81.3 
million (159 participations).
As with the enterprise sector, both in the higher 
education institutions and in the non-university 
65 The Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) is a 100% subsidiary of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW).
66 Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), 2019.
research institutions the funding acquired is concen-
trated on a few large and particularly successful in-
stitutions. There is actually a large number of institu-
tions involved, but quantitatively speaking, the funds 
are concentrated predominantly on these few select-
ed institutions (see Fig. 1-33). 
Fig. 1-33 shows that amongst higher education in-
stitutions around 63% of the total Horizon 2020 
funding is awarded to the five – in absolute terms – 
most successful (i.e. the University of Vienna, Vienna 
University of Technology, the Institute of Science and 
Technology Austria (IST), Graz University of Technol-
ogy, and the Medical University of Vienna). Amongst 
non-university research institutions, this concentra-
tion is less marked; the five most successful institu-
tions (Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Austrian 
Academy of Sciences (OeAW), the VIRTUAL VEHICLE 
research centre, JOANNEUM RESEARCH and the 
Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM)
65
) receive al-
most 50% of the funds.
The success rates for participation in Horizon 
2020 are above the European averages both for high-
er education institutions and for non-university re-
search institutions. The universities/higher educa-
tion institutions enjoyed a success rate of 14.4% 
(compared with the corresponding EU average of 
13.6%) and the non-university research institutions 
one of 20.0% (as against 18.8%).
One explicit goal for both Austrian and European 
research and technology policy is to promote collab-
orative research, and particularly to intensify links 
between the academic sector (higher education in-
stitutions and non-university research institutions) 
and the business enterprise sector. Over a third of 
Austrian projects within Horizon 2020 consist of col-
laborations between private enterprise (companies) 
and higher education institutions. These projects re-
ceive funding totalling approximately €366 million. 
This represents a 40.2% share of all funding, which 
also reflects the high level of research collaborations 
between these sectors in Austria.
66

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