Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

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Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
tive in the life sciences field, screening this portfolio 
and selecting and further developing the most prom-
ising projects. It is now to be internationalised by 
setting up an international fund involving the Innov-
Fin Equity Facility for Early-Stage (part of the Euro-
pean Investment Fund EIF), the Austria Wirtschafts-
service (aws) acting on behalf of the Federal Ministry 
for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW) (plus fund-
ing from the Austria Fund), and the Max Planck Foun-
dation (MPI). The fund is managed by an experienced 
team of experts armed with networks of useful con-
tacts. A local office, wings4innovation (w4i), has also 
been set up in Austria to create a sustainable struc-
ture and build up the necessary skills at national lev-
el. The fund is endowed with €60 million in venture 
capital. The full amount of the Austrian contribution 
(€13 million) goes towards Austrian projects, while 
there is also the opportunity to supplement these 
funds by up to €30 million from the fund’s assets, 
which are allocated on a competitive basis.
The call for proposals for a medical engineering 
networking platform designed with community con-
sensus will be launched in 2020 with the aim of de-
veloping an expert/expertise network and/or struc-
tured platform to serve as a knowledge pool for med-
ical engineering/products for SMEs, suppliers and 
researchers. Priority areas include harnessing the 
available technical expertise and compiling and pro-
ducing information material/process aids on the top-
ic of regulation/licensing (regulations under the MDR 
(medical products) and IVDR (in vitro diagnostics), 
digital applications (AI, e-health) and product profile 
design as well as market opportunities and market 
access. 
As part of efforts to fund cooperative research 
and support start-up projects, four new Christian 
Doppler Laboratories and one Josef Ressel Centre 
from the “Life sciences and environment” and “Medi-
cine” thematic clusters were opened during the re-
porting period. In 2019, the LISA (Life Science Austria) 
initiative handed nine life sciences start-up projects 
78 See Federal Act on Establishing the Climate and Energy Fund – Climate and Energy Fund Act (KLI.EN-FondsG), Federal Law Ga-
zette I No. 40/2007.
a total of €1.75 million in PreSeed funds and seven 
firms with €5.2 million in seed financing. The re-
vamped “Best of Biotech 2019” prize for life sciences 
(BoB, award for the best business plan) also hon-
oured the best business ideas and plans in the three 
categories of biotech/pharma, digital health and 
medical engineering. Likewise, the Austrian Society 
for Molecular Biosciences and Biotechnology 
(ÖGMBT) presented the “Science2Business Awards” 
and the “Life Science Research Awards Austria 2019” 
in the categories of basic research, application-ori-
ented research and outstanding research with social 
relevance.