Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Significance and assessment
The results of the evaluation show that the ACRP has 
made substantial progress in achieving the pro-
gramme objectives: capacities have been established 
both in research and in programme management, ad-
ditional stakeholders have been recruited for re-
search on climate change, and competencies have 
been developed and broadened in interdisciplinary 
and transdisciplinary research, both in relation to the 
technical subject matter and methodology. The foun-
dation for building up these competencies is the con-
ception of the ACRP as a competitive funding pro-
gramme with a selection procedure based primarily 
on research quality and the qualifications of the proj-
ect teams. 
There would be little interdisciplinary or transdis-
ciplinary climate research in Austria without the 
ACRP. The essential stakeholders are well-connect-
ed, and many of them also work in the funded proj-
ects in international partnerships as well as with 
practical stakeholders from public institutions, asso-
ciations, NGOs, civil society and companies. The spe-
cific research questions in the funded projects were 
often research-driven in the sense that they were 
formulated and proposed by researchers. Stakehold-
er involvement is a significant demand imposed by 
the ACRP Steering Committee, but this often only 
takes place in a relatively loose form that is not bind-
ing for practitioners, e.g. in the form of workshops on 
the specific orientation of research questions or re-
flecting on results. Nevertheless, many ACRP proj-
ects have produced substantial results towards the 
goal of overcoming the climate crisis in Austria. The 
most recent maximum permissible project size of 
€250,000 is at variance with the requirements of col-
laborative research, particularly in transdisciplinary 

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