Research is at home in Styria

Research is at home in Styria, the green heart of Austria

Lush Styria not only has the largest proportion of forests in Austria, it is also number one when it comes to research and development.

Styria is a province full of innovation located right in the heart of the future-orientated Alps-Adriatic Region. Styria’s core competence and success story is knowledge and technology transfer. A large proportion of the Austrian competence centres do their research and work here. Spin-offs from the university sector are the norm and independent research centres such as Joanneum Research are available to companies at any time.

According to ABA – Invest in Austria, no other Austrian province launches so many innovative products and services on the market as Styria does. With a research and development ratio of 5.16 percent, Styria ranks amongst the best regions in Europe. The reasons for this are the excellent education, research and corporate environment and most importantly the people in the province. With five universities teaching more than 55,000 students, an internationally renowned university of applied sciences system as well as many research institutions, Styria is the Austria’s technology factory, so to speak. As a logical consequence the proportion of highly qualified employees is remarkably high.

Research and development

With regards to the competitiveness between regions and countries, the areas science, industrial research and development as well as knowledge transfer are of great importance. A successful business and research location has to cover the innovation chain from basic research at universities through to the successful introduction of products and services. The province of Styria is in a good position as it has a broad scientific base at its disposal including universities, non-university research institutions (institutes from the Austrian Academy of Science, the province’s own research association Joanneum Research) and courses at universities of applied science. The cooperation between the scientific basis and the local companies contributes considerably to Styria’s position in international competition as a business and research location. In addition, these collaborations have been supported for decades by a proven scientific, research and business development practise.

Styrian competences

ABA lists 18 competence centres; one of them is the Austrian Research Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (Acib). Acib acts as a significant link between research and industry and is forming a network of around 200 universities and companies from the biotechnology sector such as BASF, DSM, Sandoz, Boehringer Ingelheim RCV, Jungbunzlauer and VTU Technology. The international competence centre is headquartered in Austria (with sites in Graz, Innsbruck, Tulln and Vienna) and also has further sites in Heidelberg, Bielefeld, Hamburg (Germany), Pavia

Photo: Lunghammer

Research in life sciences at the University of Technology Graz: biological processes of yeast

Competence centres

c acib (Austrian Center of Industrial Biotechnology) c Virtual Vehicle (K2-Mobility) c MCL – Materials Center Leoben Forschung GmbH c Bioenergy 2020+ c CBMed c Evolaris c Know-Center c LEC EvoLET c PCCL Polymer Competence Center Leoben c RCPE Research Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering c ASD– Acoustic Sensing and Design c MedUni Graz c ECO – Cool c ECO Power Drive c Flippr² c Join c SeCoS c Vision+

Job market and economic structure

c Total number of jobs c Apprentices c Jobseekers (annual average)2

c Unemployment rate2

c Members at the Economic Chamber 531,523 15,543 34,038 6.0%

92,880 c Business formations3 5,966 c Gross value added in mln euros (2018) 44,324 c Gross regional product in mln euros (2018) 49,604 c Share in the Austrian GDP (2018) 12.9% c Gross regional product per capita in euros (2018) 40,000 c Foreign trade in mln euros (Q1+Q2) c Imports 10,097 c Exports 13,376 c Tourism overnight stays (x 1,000) 13,289 c Patent issuances nationally (2018) 220

(Italy), Rzeszów (Poland), Barcelona (Spain), Canterbury (New Zealand) and Taiwan.

Another competence centre is the Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH. Shareholders include the University of Technology Graz (34%), AVL List (16%), Magna Steyr Fahrzeug (16%), Siemens Mobility (10%), Joanneum Research (8%), Voestalpine (8%) and Infineon (8%).

It is Europe’s largest research centre for virtual vehicle development with 310 employees. Its research focus is the close connection between numerical simulations and hardware tests in the automotive and railway industries. This ensures that the design and automation of test and validation procedures reach a defined level of quality. Virtual Vehicle cooperates with 30 national and 50 international industry partners (OEMs, tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers as well as software providers) plus 18 national and 30 international scientific institutions. The continuous development and safeguarding of complex hardware-software overall systems is made possible. The focus on industryorientated research makes Virtual Vehicle a catalyst for innovation of vehicle technologies of the future.

And being a little less specific, what does Styria focus on? Barbara Eibinger-Miedl Regional Minister for Business, Tourism, Regions, Science and Research, for short the future-orientated departments, explains.

Questions for the Regional Minister on Styria as a business location

What is Styria’s focus as a business location? What does the Province focus on in the long term? In Styria as well as in all other regions in Europe, the effects of the Covid crisis are the dominant topic. In Styria, Covid also brought the economy to a halt. For this reason, our current focus is on sustaining companies and thus sustaining jobs. We as a Province also reinforced the immediate relief packages from the federal government. We are currently working on a recovery package for the Styrian economy. Styria has good prerequisi-

Photo: Lunghammer/TU Graz tes to get back on the path to success. In the long term it is therefore important to further push our economic strengths – mobility, green technologies, life sciences as well as microEngine research at the University of Technology Graz electronics. Digitising Styria: where are we at? The Covid crisis triggered an enormous push towards digitisation. Developments, which otherwise would have needed years, were needed within days and were made possible. I am referring to the establishment of online shops for companies and the establishment of teleworking jobs for employees as well as home schooling

“Styria is too small to save the climate on its own, and distance learning at univerbut it can deliver technologies to help.“ sities. That is something which should motivate us to use the Barbara Eibinger-Miedl opportunities which digitisation offers even more than before. I will continue to wholeheartedly put every effort into making this possible. How is it looking when it comes to climate targets in Styria? What are you doing in terms of climate protection? Climate protection is not only one of the main aims of the federal government, it is also anchored as one of the key agendas of the Styrian coalition agreement. We have a committee where not only the political parties in the regional parliament are represented but

also external experts from different areas. Here we regularly consult on which measures we can take in the specific departments of the provincial government in order to make an effective contribution to climate protection.

Styria is too small to save the climate on its own, but it can deliver technologies to help. Styria is proving that economic growth does not cancel out climate protection with its many innovative companies in the energy and environmental technology sector as well as in the mobility sector.

Styria’s economic strategy “Growth through Innovation” is almost at the halfway mark. What will you be focussing on in the second half? The economic strategy is the framework for concrete measures, which we at the Ministry of Economic Affairs are taking to support companies. We are currently reworking the existing economic strategy and adapting it to the current developments such as the fastpaced advancements in digitisation. It is clear that the strengths which we have already mentioned as well as the focus on research and development will play an important role in future strategies.

What can companies expect in Styria? Or why exactly should companies come and settle in Styria? Styria is the number one province when it comes to innovation and research. A particular Styrian strength is the cooperation between universities, research institutes, companies and politics in Styria, which works outstandingly. This makes an enormous contribution to the fact that many Styrian companies achieve great success with their products and services all around the globe.

Furthermore, there is also intensive cooperation within the clusters between large industrial leading companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. The highly skilled staff and the high quality of life are two further arguments that speak for the province of Styria. ◆