Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

1.4.3 Current developments in the higher 
education sector
Higher education institutions are key pillars of knowl-
edge societies and perform a crucial role in the RTI 
system. The most relevant developments in Austria’s 
higher education system are outlined below.
Austrian Higher Education Plan (HoP)
The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Re-
search (BMBWF) is currently developing a new gover-
nance instrument in order to incorporate the various 
recommendations by the Austrian Science Board, the 
Austrian Council for Research and Technology Devel-
opment and the Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) re-
garding the comprehensive further development of 
the higher education system. The objectives of this 
comprehensive further development are to be pre-
sented in the Austrian Higher Education Plan (HoP) 
and include quantitative targets for the individual 
sectors and key priorities for all higher education 
sectors (universities, universities of applied sciences, 
university colleges of teacher education and private 
universities) in the years to 2030. An initial prototype 
is expected in 2020.
Austrian National Development Plan for Public 
Universities (GUEP)
The Austrian National Development Plan for Public 
Universities (GUEP)
88
is a strategic planning instru-
ment for developing the public universities and a way 
of presenting the corresponding aims of the Federal 
Ministry for Education, Science and Research (BMB-

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Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
WF) in a transparent manner for a timeframe span-
ning a total of two performance agreement periods. 
It serves to provide overall structure and control to 
Austria’s university landscape and forms the basis for 
university development plans and for the public uni-
versities’ performance agreements.
89
Following a consultation process involving 42 
higher education institutions, the first-ever Austrian 
National Development Plan for Public Universities 
(GUEP) was produced in 2015 with a planning hori-
zon of 2016–2021. The plan was revised in 2017 on 
a rolling basis for the 2019–2024 planning period in 
preparation for the negotiations on the performance 
agreements in 2018 and their conclusion in 2019–
2021. The revision of the Austrian National Develop-
ment Plan for Public Universities (GUEP) for 2022–
2027 that is now under way was preceded by a 
comprehensive consultation process involving the 
most important stakeholders from science and re-
search.
90
The content of this version focuses more 
on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 
STEM and digitalisation. 
As the former system target 4, “Improve relevant 
teaching performance indicators” has been integrat-
ed into system target 3 (“Improve university teach-
ing”), which has been expanded to “Improve the 
quality and efficiency of university teaching”, the re-
vised version now has seven rather than eight sys-
tem targets. The developments and objectives that 
the Austrian National Development Plan for Public 
Universities (GUEP) is targeting at system level for 
2022–2027 are thus as follows: 
System target 1: strengthen and further develop the 
higher education system;
System target 2: strengthen basic research;
System target 3: improve the quality and efficiency 
of university teaching;
System target 4: promote the next generation of 
scientific and artistic talent;
89 See Section 12b of the Universities Act 2002 (UG 2002).
90 A total of 37 statements were submitted on the version of the Austrian National Development Plan for Public Universities (GUEP) 
presented for consultation.
System target 5: expand knowledge and informa-
tion transfer and enhance Austria’s benefits as a lo-
cation;
System target 6: increase internationalisation and 
mobility;
System target 7: the universities’ social responsibil-
ity – performing a service to society: gender equality, 
diversity and social inclusion, responsible science, 
the 2030 Agenda and achieving the SDGs, digital 
transformation.