Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Fig. 1-32: Concentration of funding amongst the 
most successful companies
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
80.0
90.0
100.0
0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0
S
ha
re o
f f
un
ds r
ai
se
d i
n % (
cu
m
ul
at
iv
e)
Share of all successful companies (cumulative)
Concentration of funding 
 
(shown as a Lorenz curve)
Share of funding
Line of equality
Source: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), 2019.

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Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
Due to the different orientation of individual pro-
gramme lines, it is natural for striking differences to 
emerge, as far as the use of each programme by indi-
vidual types of organisation is concerned. Higher ed-
ucation institutions focus particularly on Pillar I, “Ex-
cellent Science”. In total they receive €324.7 million 
through this pillar (64.8% of all H2020 funding ac-
quired by Austrian universities). Within this the Euro-
pean Research Council (ERC) is the largest contribu-
tor, with €200.1 million. Austrian universities are 
therefore evidently capable of attracting substantial 
funding from this particularly selective Horizon 2020 
funding source for their cutting-edge research. In ad-
dition to the ERC, the “Marie Skłodowska Curie Ac-
tions (MSCA)“ also play a quantitatively significant 
role for higher education institutions, with €74.2 mil-
lion. In third place under Pillar I is “Future and Emerg-
ing Technologies (FET)”, with €39.3 million. 
Within the “Societal Challenges” pillar, Austrian 
higher education institutions receive approximately 
€105.6 million in funding, across 257 participations, 
amongst which the dominant programme lines are 
“Health”, with €42.8 million (81 participations) and 
“Environment”, with €14.3 million (44 participations). 
For universities the “Industrial Leadership” pillar 
plays a comparatively small role (€56.5 million in 144