Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

4.2.6 Evaluation of the Austrian Climate 
Research Programme (ACRP)
Launched in 2008, the Austrian Climate Research 
Programme (ACRP) is a programme of the Austrian 
Climate and Energy Fund (KLIEN) in cooperation with 
the former Federal Ministry for Sustainability and 
Tourism (BMNT), which was also responsible for the 
funding of the Climate and Energy Fund as part of its 
departmental competences at the time of the evalu-
ation. The ACRP’s content focuses primarily on re-
searching the national characteristics, impacts and 
adaptation requirements of climate change. The 
ACRP pursues two thematic priorities: i) expanding 
Austrian research competence in content-related fo-
cal points and integrating this more thoroughly into 
international research, and ii) providing decision-mak-
ers in politics and administration with sound scientif-

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Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
ic bases for decision-making for the purposes of 
managing climate change.
The ACRP promotes research projects on various 
topics within the framework of annual competitive 
calls for proposals. In these projects climate research 
in Austria should be coordinated and boosted and 
also integrated more effectively into international cli-
mate research. The research projects that receive 
funding should deliver results that are useful for sci-
ence, business and the public sector, while at the 
same time offering the potential for international rec-
ognition and topic-based leadership for Austrian cli-
mate researchers. Last but not least, the capacities 
for progressive interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary 
work with relevance for policy formulation and policy 
making should be established and expanded in 
Austria.
The Climate and Energy Fund appointed Technop-
olis Group Austria to carry out the evaluation
212
. The 
empirical basis for the evaluation involved analysis of 
the programme-related documents and websites, the 
evaluation of monitoring data, interviews with all 
groups of people belonging to the ACRP, four focus 
groups with participants in funded projects and six 
case studies on selected projects.
Key data
Seven calls for proposals were launched during the 
evaluation period from 2011 to 2017, with 137 proj-
ects receiving an average of €264,236 in funds during 
this time. The average duration of these projects was 
31 months. A total of 92% of the funded projects 
were collaborative, with the most frequent ones be-
ing projects involving three or four participating insti-
tutions. This is in line with the goal of connecting 
Austrian climate research. The ACRP also successful-
ly supported the international focus for Austrian cli-
mate research: partner organisations from abroad 
took part in 59 of the 126 collaborative projects, 
i.e. almost half of all projects involved (47%). A total 
of 134 different institutions participated in funded 
212 See Tiefenthaler and Ohler (2019).
projects in the calls for proposals examined. The 
“core” of the Austrian ACRP participants is made up 
of 33 institutions that have taken part in several 
ACRP projects.