Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

1. Current Trends
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NCP is also an established service facility for further 
developing IP rights and exploitation strategies at 
universities and research institutions (IST Austria, 
Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW)) in accor-
dance with their performance agreements.
Implementation of the “Strategy for the future for 
Life Sciences and Pharmaceuticals in Austria”
Launched in late 2016, the “Strategy for the future 
for Life Sciences and Pharmaceuticals in Austria” is 
geared towards securing and increasing the industri-
al and scientific competitiveness of the sector, which 
is important for Austria as a location. As in the previ-
ous two years, predefined measures in the nine fields 
of action (basic research, research infrastructures, 
big data, personalised medicine, clinical research, 
partnerships between science and industry, compa-
nies, production and market, dialogue between sci-
ence and society) were continued, implemented and 
completed in the third year of implementation as 
well. 
One particular priority within the remit of the Fed-
eral Ministry of Education, Science and Research 
(BMBWF) in 2019 was the area of research infrastruc-
tures, most notably through its efforts to extend the 
term of the Vienna BioCenter (VBC) Vision. The VBC 
Vision is a funding package for high-tech research 
infrastructure and its operation in order to secure the 
Vienna BioCenter’s position as a centre of excellence 
for life sciences research. Set up specially for the 
purpose, Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities GmbH (VB-
CF GmbH) is a limited-liability company that oper-
ates the research infrastructures for the research in-
stitutions and biotech firms on campus and in the 
wider Vienna area. This initiative, which was launched 
in 2010 and is supported jointly by the Federal Min-
istry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) 
and the City of Vienna, is due to end in 2020. An 
evaluation in 2018 by an international committee of 
experts found that the VBC vision was being imple-
mented in a very positive way and described it as a 
77 See 
https://www.bioimaging-austria.at/web/pages/about.php
successful model for harnessing synergy effects be-
tween research infrastructures. This prompted a po-
litical coordination process between the federal gov-
ernment and the City of Vienna in 2019 regarding 
extending the VBC Vision to 2030. The necessary 
groundwork was also laid in terms of actually organ-
ising the funding so that an extension could be im-
plemented in good time in the course of 2020.
At European level, the ESFRI research infrastruc-
ture “Euro-BioImaging” was set up in November 2019 
following a decision from the European Commission. 
Austria is a founder member of this network for im-
aging research infrastructure alongside 13 other Eu-
ropean countries. Austria’s hub for Euro-BioImaging
77
is an “Imaging Facilities” platform run by the Medical 
University of Vienna, VBCF GmbH, Vienna University 
of Technology, the University of Veterinary Medicine 
Vienna, the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), 
the Research Center for Virtual Reality and Visualiza-
tion (Forschungszentrum für Virtual Reality und Visu-
alisierung – VRVis), the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute 
for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology and the 
University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria.
A 2019 highlight in the Big data field of activity 
was the €50
 
million
 
call for proposals issued by the 
Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research 
(BMBWF) for “Projects for digital and social transfor-
mation in higher education”, which is benefiting life 
sciences, amongst other areas. One noteworthy ex-
ample from the life sciences field is the “Austrian 
Neuro Cloud” project, which aims to create a stan-
dardised cloud-based system across Austria for stor-
ing, managing and evaluating neuro-cognitive re-
search data.
Two flagship projects within the remit of the 
Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs 
(BMDW) were implemented or prepared in 2019.
One involves the Translational Research Center 
(TRC) for life sciences, which is responsible for creat-
ing a national project portfolio based on viable proj-
ects from universities and research institutions ac-

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