Happy networking in Lower Austria

Platforms and networks for businesses and science are part of Lower Austria’s economic strategy.

For 20 years Lower Austria’s efforts in establishing and running business clusters went by the mission statement “innovation through cooperation”. And this has paid off during the pandemic and also now during the economic recovery. “Our cluster teams are trend scouts,” agree Regional Councillor for Economic Affairs Jochen Danninger and Managing Director Helmut Miernicki. “They are sounding out developments, addressing potential sunrise technologies and presenting them within the various sectors to our partner businesses. It is great to see that after the huge challenges of the past months 34 cooperation projects have been launched in the first half of 2021. This shows us that the upswing has really reached our more than 560 cluster partners.”

1,564 projects, thereof 911 cooperation projects with more than 5,100 project partners, more than 2,200 events with about 98.500 visitors – the figures of the last 20 years prove that the Lower Austrian clusters have been a success. “The figures show that we are on the right track. We are joining forces in a network and developing innovations together in areas where it would hardly be possible for a single company to follow the latest trends and tap the potentials of the latest technologies. This secures the edge in know-how the cluster partners have and also their competitiveness,” Danninger says.

Clusters on different topics

Ecoplus, Lower Austria’s business agency, is operating clusters for innovative and sustainable construction, foods, plastics and mechatronics – the latter is also implementing the Province’s e-mobility initiative. The clusters focus mainly on cross-company cooperation projects but also qualifications and information.

Current cluster projects

These projects always reflect economic development. Right now, cooperation projects around digitisation, cycle economy and sustainability are becoming more important. The Green Building Cluster of Lower Austria focuses on digitisation in the construction business. The so-called Building Information Modeling (BIM) supports a digital building model in planning, realising and operating a building. The Food Cluster of Lower Austria has put the focus on the sustainable use of resources, among other things. A cooperation project of the Plastics Cluster tries to turn waste materials from the plastics industry into reusable materials for a cycle economy. And the companies in the Mechatronics Cluster work on overcoming the challenges of decarbonisation.

“The pandemic has increased the innovative potential of our cluster partners further – most of them are coming out of the crisis

stronger than before and with a lot of optimism. The far-reaching network of the Ecoplus clusters proved once more to be viable and stable, and all together we will keep on bringing digitisation, ecology and thematic leadership to our businesses,” explains Ecoplus Managing Director Helmut Miernicki and Claus Zeppelzauer, Ecoplus Manager for Business & Technology.

Clusters for building…

The Green Building Cluster of Lower Austria represents innovative, sustainable construction. Under the motto “innovation through cooperation“, the cluster aims to promote innovation in the domestic construction industry and boost business by pooling potential and expertise into a network of stakeholders from business, research and training as well as from specialist organisations and the regional government of Lower Austria.

One of the Green Building Cluster’s three focus points is climate adaptive technologies, that is technologies that use climate change for innovation in the construction business. Some of the areas tackled are building cooling, building ventilation, rainwater management, green infrastructure and climate-resilient planning. Another focus point is constructive efficiency, i.e. how multifunctional and optimised components bring competitive advantages and higher added value through guaranteed quality. This includes the resource-efficient use of building materials, hybrid constructions, the use of renewable raw-materials as well as fault-tolerant and resilient building systems. And the third focus point is digitisation in construction engineering, structural change through digitisation in the construction sector. The areas covered are, amongst others, the Initiative BIM@KKMU, the Initiative VR and AR, the Initiative DiTecBau and the Initiative Lean Construction.

…. and for food

The Food Cluster of Lower Austria is the information, service and contact point for the entire value chain of the food industry in Lower Austria – from agriculture to processing companies and retail. The cluster initiative is supported by two Departments of the Lower Austrian Government: Business and Agriculture.

The Food Cluster addresses companies along the entire value chain in the food industry as an umbrella organisation. It networks people from agriculture, food retail and wholesalers as well as hospitality. The companies work as a regional group with suppliers and partners from research and development facilities, education cen-

tres and service providers for consulting, laboratories etc. The Food Cluster also cooperates with the partners of other clusters such as the Plastics Cluster (e.g. on food packaging) or the Mechatronics Cluster (e.g. in machine construction).

Raw materials, energy, water and soil are valuable resources that are particularly important in the production of foods. The focus on a “sustainable use of resources” reflects the mission of the cooperation projects to have a responsible and optimised use of resources. The Food Cluster also works on food quality and food safety.

Fleeting borders between Upper and Lower Austria

The Plastics Cluster is a cross-industry network of the plastics sector. Thanks to the collaboration between Lower Austria and Upper Austria, which has existed since 2005, the Plastics Cluster has become the largest network for plastics technology in Europe. The Plastics Cluster thus provides a pre-competitive basis for innovative product development of its cluster partners in business and research in key areas such as bioplastics, multifunctional component development and material cycle / recycling. In addition, its collaboration with the Mechatronics Cluster offers high networking potential for both sectors due to their closely related subject areas.

The Mechatronics Cluster comprises the sectors metal, mechanical engineering, electrics, electronics as well as information and communication technology. With around 44,000 jobs in 1,700 companies, the mechatronics sector is one of the most important areas of the Lower Austrian economy. The focus of the Mechatronics Cluster is on business and research, innovation, cooperation, training and project initiation for specific key areas: mobility, advanced manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and robotics.

The aim is to pool potential and expertise to increase the innovative strength and international competitiveness of cluster partners. A special emphasis is placed on the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Both the Plastics Cluster and the Mechatronics Cluster are a cross-regional cooperation between Upper Austria and Lower Austria. The executive organisations are the business agencies Business Upper Austria and Ecoplus Lower Austria.

Electric mobility

The initiative “E-mobility in Lower Austria” was launched in 2010. It is operated by three Departments of the Lower Austrian Government: Business, Environment and Transport. The operational implementation is carried out by Ecoplus.

The cluster’s aim is to provide a valuable contribution to CO2 and energy reduction through electric mobility, as well as provide an impetus for a new mobility trend and boost the region’s economy. As an example, the four project partners have been working on a sophisticated project since 2018 – developing a completely new electric vehicle for municipalities and agriculture, where all key technologies come from Lower Austria. This year saw the construction of a prototype; Regional Councillor Jochen Danninger and Ecoplus Managing Director Helmut Miernicki can offer more details on the cooperation project EMPA-Trac, the Lower Austrian electric vehicle.

“We have been working hard on the initiative “E-mobility in Lower Austria” since 2010, trying to give this new technology room and the right conditions for a smooth use in everyday life. This is reflected in the increasing number of newly registered electric vehicles. The situation is different in the areas of commercial vehicles, however, where internal combustion engines are still dominating. The partners of the cooperation project EMPA-Trac have entered uncharted territory with their Lower Austrian electric vehicle and have thus become trailblazers,” Danninger says.

Electric tractor in a modular system

EMPA-Trac stands for “Electric Modular Platform Architecture-Tractor“. It is not simply an electric vehicle but an e-drive platform for municipalities and agriculture, and its modular system enables the creation of two-, three- or even four-axle vehicles for different types of use. The project partners are Adolf Tobias

Michael Mader (Hellpower Energy), Rebin Jaber, (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology), Klaus Alberer (TÜV Austria Services), Regional Councillor Jochen Danninger in the EMPA-Trac as well as Adolf Tobias, Birgit Kainz and project manager Peter Kainz from Adolf Tobias Gesellschaft.

Gesellschaft, who also leads the project with project manager Peter Kainz, electric drive specialists from the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, battery developer Hellpower-Energy and TÜV Austria Automotive.

After more than three years of development, the partners presented a prototype which is located at project initiator Adolf Tobias in St. Andrä-Wördern. “EMPA-Trac’s project duration ended in May 2021 but the project has basically started all over: We are constantly improving and developing the prototype until it is market ready If everything goes according to plan, we will be able to enter the market in 2023,” say project manager Peter Kainz and Adolf Tobias, whose eponymous company is actually operating in steel construction and agricultural technology.

The research and development cooperation project EMPA-Trac received grants from the 9th instalment of the “Lighthouse projects in electric mobility” initiative, which is run by the Climate and Energy Fund. The implementation of the EMPA-Trac project was supported by the e-mobility initiative of the Province of Lower Austria, which is housed at the Mechatronics Cluster. “We are focusing on a cooperative set-up of competences and on the collaborative development of new technologies. EMPA-Trac is a lighthouse project and proves in a very impressive way what can be done if committed experts are joining forces and are becoming drivers of innovation,” Miernicki says. ◆

Lower Austria – sustainable economic development

Ecoplus, the Business Agency of Lower Austria, is a reliable partner of people in business as well as investors and initiators of regional and international projects. It acts as an essential interface between business, politics and science.

It offers tailored advice when it comes to available subsidies, possible business locations, business settlements and regional funding in Lower Austria. Ecoplus is also involved in the management of business parks and investments, implementing cross border projects, developing clusters, technopoles and the House of Digitalisation.

ecoplus. Niederösterreichs Wirtschaftsagentur GmbH www.ecoplus.at