Programmes such as "COIN-Aufbau" raise Austria's innovation potential and secure the future of Austria as a research and business location.

As important research partners of the economy, especially the Austrian SME sector, ACR and FHK are today making an urgent appeal to politicians to finally give the green light for the continuation and expansion of the COIN Aufbau research funding programme.
All evaluation reports highlight the programme's broad impact. COIN encourages companies to participate in research activities in order to generate innovations and further develop their own products and processes. The disproportionately high share of SMEs participating in COIN is also noteworthy.

"Innovation makes you fit for the future!" ACR and FHK also agree with this guiding principle of this year's FFG Forum, which took place yesterday in Vienna. In order to ensure the transfer of innovation to the economy and society, research programmes are needed that specifically and accurately promote cooperation between research institutions and companies. COIN is such a programme and it would be fatal for Austria as a research and business location if this is precisely where the savings pencil were to be applied.

"We need measures that turn innovations into concrete applications or products and services "Made in Austria" in order to keep Austria well-positioned as a business location in the future. The FHK is therefore also generally in favour of continuous application-oriented research funding. At the same time, however, effective funding channels such as COIN-Building must be maintained and expanded, as they help to make the research institutions compatible with the excellence programmes. Research capacities that were promoted in companies and universities of applied sciences as part of COIN have been successfully continued in Josef Ressel Centres, for example," explains FHK Secretary General Kurt Koleznik on the great importance of COIN.

"We must ensure that applied research does not lose out to basic research in terms of importance and funding. After all, it is precisely practical research that, in close cooperation between science and industry, succeeds in really putting the horsepower on the road, i.e. increasing the innovation output, which is too low compared to R&D input. Austria has set itself the goal of making the leap from "Strong Innovator" to the much-cited "Innovation Leader" in Europe. This can only be achieved with accurate and well-funded funding programmes such as COIN and, in particular, COIN development and a firm commitment to location-relevant, application-oriented research," ACR Managing Director Sonja Sheikh is convinced.

The ACR and FHK are therefore in favour of a continuation or a guaranteed annual call for proposals for COIN as well as a significant increase in the funding volume. COIN is one of the most oversubscribed funding programmes run by the FFG.
In budgetary terms, the programme is assigned to the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW).