Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Outlook and scenarios
The evaluation team developed four future scenarios 
with respect to the repositioning for the OSTAs that 
will be required in 2020. The overriding principle for 
each of these scenarios was to maintain the high lev-
el of benefits for customers and the motivation and 
engagement in the teams, to meet the expectations 
of the financing ministerial departments more effec-
tively and to simplify the governance. The following 
scenarios were presented in accordance with this: 
• Scenario 1: small OSTAs with variable geometry;
• Scenario 2: office community of attachés;
• Scenario 3: RTI agency responsible for the OSTAs;
• Scenario 4: internationalisation programme.
206 See 
https://www.ffg.at/content/evaluierung-der-foerderung
4.2.3 Impact monitoring of Austrian Research 
Promotion Agency (FFG) funding in companies 
and research institutions
Impact indicators have been collected in Austria on 
corporate R&D funding for over 40 years. This impact 
monitoring was initially used for ongoing monitoring 
of the impact of the subsidies of the former Industri-
al Research Promotion Fund (FFF) and now forms the 
basis for monitoring the majority of the portfolio of 
the organisation known in the meantime as the Aus-
trian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). The compa-
nies that receive funding are surveyed four years af-
ter completion of the projects, since the medium-term 
effects on the behaviour of funding recipients and 
the economic results of risky R&D projects frequently 
only become evident after a delay. This temporal 
structure has been maintained until today with the 
exception of the period between 1986-1997, when 
the survey was already carried out three years after 
the end of the project. Since 2014, research institu-
tions have also been surveyed. The annual monitor-
ing reports are freely accessible on the Austrian Re-
search Promotion Agency (FFG) website.
206
Selected results from the period between 2011-
2019 are set out below. The survey was extended in 
2011 to include project funding for the Thematic and 
Structural Programmes and the questionnaires were 
developed further in connection with this. The sam-
ple comprises institutions that completed funded 
R&D projects in the period between 2007-2015 
(2010-2015) and completed a questionnaire on the 
impact of the project on their organisation four years 
after the end of the project. The response rate has 
traditionally been very high since the impact moni-
toring began in 1977; the sample presented here is 
based on an average response rate of 71% for compa-
nies and 57% for research institutions.