Annual Report 2019: Aufschwung durch Innovation (FFG (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft))

Summary

• FFG funded over 3000 research and innovation projects in the last year.p.25
• In the Corona special call, first funding for 24 projects was approved by the end of April, with about €26 million provided by two federal ministries.p.3
• The federal government made €28 million available for Covid-19 research projects.p.5
• The government set up two support funds with a total of €150 million for start-ups.p.27
• Every second FFG funding euro goes to digitalisation projects, and Austria ranks 13th in the EU's Digital Economy and Society Index.p.28
• In November 2019 the world's largest pilot plant for CO2-free hydrogen production started at voestalpine in Linz, within the €18 million EU-funded H2Future project.p.14
• Four new innovation workshops were selected from 24 applications and receive €1.8 million.p.23

Key insights

1. Austria ranks eighth of 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index.p.12
2. About 560 Austrian companies spent €681 million on energy R&D in 2017, an increase of 40 percent against 2015.p.15
3. Solar power in Austria with over 1600 megawatts covers the demand of 450,000 households.p.12
4. Innophore, Graz University and acib are screening around two billion potential active substances against Covid-19 with Harvard University.p.7
5. The MitoEagle network brings together 450 researchers from 50 countries on mitochondrial function.p.10
6. Austrian companies file 12,000 and more inventions for patent worldwide each year.p.19
7. Almost 90 percent of start-ups founded between 2014 and 2016 are still active.p.27