Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Table 1-4: Funding R&D expenditure in the higher education sector by field of science, 2017
Fields of science
Entities perf
orming 
R&D
Total
Business enterprise sector
Public sector
Priv
ate non-pr
ofit 
sector
Higher education sector
Abr
oad (excl. EU)
EU
Feder
al 
go
vernment
Regional go
vernments
Local go
vernments
Other
Combined
Number
In € millions
In %
In %
In %
In %
In %
In %
In %
In %
In %
In %
1.0 to 6.0 combined
1,259
2,533
5.1
73.1
2.7
0.1
9.5
85.4
0.5
3.3
2.0
3.6
1.0 to 4.0 combined
707
1,932
6.2
69.8
2.9
0.1
10.6
83.4
0.4
3.5
2.3
4.2
1.0 Natural sciences
241
722
2.7
70.1
2.4
0.1
15.0
87.5
0.3
1.5
1.7
6.2
2.0 Engineering sciences
225
532
11.1
65.1
4.1
0.2
9.4
78.8
0.2
3.1
2.4
4.4
3.0 Human medicine, health sciences
180
599
6.5
71.7
2.9
0.0
6.5
81.1
0.8
6.6
3.1
1.9
4.0 Agricultural sciences, veterinary medicine
61
79
2.3
83.8
0.8
0.0
8.2
92.9
0.7
1.0
1.6
1.5
5.0 and 6.0 combined
552
601
1.7
83.9
1.8
0.1
6.1
92.0
0.7
2.8
1.2
1.7
5.0 Social sciences
353
383
2.4
83.3
1.5
0.1
4.8
89.8
0.6
4.0
1.3
1.9
6.0 Humanities
199
219
0.6
85.0
2.3
0.1
8.5
95.8
0.9
0.6
1.0
1.2
Source: Statistics Austria. Calculations: WPZ Research
Table 1-3: Types of expenditure, 2007, 2015 and 2017
Type of expenditure
2007
2015
2017
In € millions
in % In € millions
In % In € millions
In %
Staff costs
3,513.1
51.2
5,206.9
49.6
5,622.2
49.8
Current material expenses
2,818.6
41.0
4,573.7
43.6
4,887.2
43.3
Expenditure on facilities and equipment
449.2
6.5
582.0
5.5
665.3
5.9
Expenditure on buildings and land
86.9
1.3
136.6
1.3
115.1
1.0
Total
6,867.8
100.0
10,499.1
100.0
11,289.8
100.0
Source: Statistics Austria. Calculations: WPZ Research.

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1. Current Trends
25
is Austria is increasingly research-intensive. The 
dominance of medium-technology industries is evi-
dent from the proportion of industries categorised as 
medium-high and medium-low technology. These in-
dustries together make up almost half (47.7%) of all 
R&D expenditure. The proportion of high-technology, 
knowledge-intensive service segments remains sub-
stantially lower, at 19.6%, but has increased in com-
parison to 2007 (15.7%). 
It is interesting to note that the proportion of 
high-technology industries in manufacturing has de-
creased since 2007, from 16.7% to 14.4%. The rele-
vant industries here are the manufacture of pharma-
ceutical products (code 21, according to the Austrian 
Statistical Classification of Economic Activities – 
ÖNACE) and of computer, electronic and optical 
products (ÖNACE code 26). This decrease can partly 
be explained by the re-classification of some larger 
organisations conducting R&D in this area, which are 
linked to the services sector activity of scientific re-
search and development (ÖNACE code 72). This ef-
fect also manifests itself in the increased proportion 
of service segments categorised as high-technology, 
knowledge-intensive industries.