Clear mission: Increasing competitiveness through applied research and innovation transfer

Unsurprisingly, the two conferences FFG Forum and AIT Tech Talks, which took place last week in Vienna, came to similar conclusions when it came to the question of how Austria and Europe can survive in global competition in the near future.

The fact that research and development play a key role was emphasised by all the ministers involved, Minister of Science Eva-Maria Holzleitner, Minister for Economic Affairs Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer and Innovation Minister Peter Hanke, emphasised several times. Above all, however, it was clearly emphasised that the financing of research and development must become more efficient (cf. OTS of FORWIT from 12 September 2025). Research results must be applied more quickly and also lead to a transfer of innovation into new products and services here in Austria and thus to value creation. There is currently a gap between innovation and the market, the so-called "innovation gap", i.e. a discrepancy between the innovative potential of research and its actual implementation in companies or society. This means that Austria invests an above-average amount of money in research (input), but produces relatively few innovative products and services (output), which then lead to corresponding value creation.

"We have known about this innovation gap in Austria for a long time. The Austrian universities of applied sciences (UAS) and universities of applied sciences (UAS), which operate at the interface between research and the market, repeatedly point out this problem. We see that there is an increasing demand from companies for the research services provided by UASs, as they have the expertise to develop research into market applications," says FHK Secretary General Kurt Koleznik.

"This realisation means that the UASs need more support. We are therefore calling for better financial framework conditions for our research and also for our researchers, who should have the opportunity to complete a dissertation at their university as part of their research. After all, it does not contribute to Austria's competitiveness if our highly qualified researchers move abroad because they find more attractive conditions there," emphasises FHK President Ulrike Prommer.