Rede zur nationalen FTI-Politik

Over the past two days, we have seen much R&D made in Austria. It’s been impressive; I commend everyone involved, and I thank the AIT for organizing this event.

We are fortunate to live in a country with a broad consensus that science and innovation secure our future prosperity, and – though unfortunately sometimes less consensually – science and innovation also secure our health, security, and democracy. Our current government certainly agrees with this – and with us – and set the goal of 4% GDP for R&D expenditures.

However, there is also reality.

  1. There is the reality of Europe’s existential crisis in a new world order, sandwiched between ruthless power players on all sides. We can answer that the dire geopolitical situation makes R&D investments even more important for our future.
  2. There is also the reality of Austria’s economic and fiscal malaise. We can again answer that also the dire national situation makes R&D investments even more important for the future.
  3. There is finally the reality of a slowly widening input-output gap in Austria’s R&D compared to the European innovation leaders.

Allow me to show a chart from our own STI Monitor. (If you don’t know this tool yet, I recommend you look it up.)

„It is time to recognize that we primarily have an output problem – not an input problem – in R&D.“
Thomas Henzinger

The two lines present the aggregate of input and output indicators for Austria’s R&D relative to the innovation leaders. As you can see: in terms of input (that is, funding) we are really close; in terms of economic and societal output, not so much. And the trend is not good. This does not mean that our performance is declining; the others are simply getting better faster. This makes me pause instead of blindly asking for more public research expenditures. It is time to recognize that we primarily have an output problem – not an input problem – in R&D.

Before the end of this year, the government will write the FTI-Pakt, an instrument that provides stable public R&D funding for basic and applied research and startups for the three-year period 27-29. The financial framework is already set – not as generous as was hoped – and may or may not be reopened; but the FTI-Pakt has to be filled also with contents.

Today FORWIT – the Austrian Council for Sciences, Technology, and Innovation – published its recommendations to the government for the impending FTI-Pakt; you can find these recommendations at forwit.at. There is not time to go through all 16 recommendations, which range from Artificial Intelligence to research security; instead I want to remind the community of four key factors to make the FTI-Pakt a success.

  1. It is a cliché, but a crisis is too valuable not to be used as an opportunity for driving change. Thus I invite all actors to reconsider how much each current activity contributes to the input and output lines of the chart I showed, and to draw and execute the appropriate conclusions.
  2. Success in research depends on so much more than finances: as in sports and the arts, what matters most is the individuals carrying out the research or starting the company – they are not interchangeable. In fact, the people who have good ideas matter much more than the ideas themselves. Therefore, as a society, we cannot afford to leave any gifted child, any potential future star researcher or future entrepreneur behind, independent of gender or background. We also need to make every effort to attract young international talents. Conversely, however, we must not afford lifetime positions for researchers who are not competitive internationally. Also structural, regulatory, and legal conditions matter greatly for research success, and they may not cost anything. In this regard, our recommendations are not the first ones to stress the importance of using public procurement strategically, and of improving the conditions for private venture funding, to name just two examples.
  3. The FTI-Pakt covers only 30% of the public R&D expenditures. The other big slices of the cake concern the universities, which are funded separately, and tax credits for corporate R&D. Not only are these budget slices separate, they also have different timelines. All R&D budgets should, however, be communicating vessels. For example, a change in FWF funds – whose beneficiaries are primarily at universities – may justify a simultaneous change in the financing logic for the universities, and vice versa. What matters is the aggregate impact of the R&D system; FORWIT therefore encourages systemic optimizations across different instruments and across traditional administrative boundaries – only those can exploit redundancies and synergies effectively.
  4. Many shortcomings are best solved not on the national, but on the European level. The crucial importance of a common European capital market and a 28th regime for European startups is only one example. Put provocatively, if I were finance minister, I would prefer to spend a research Euro in Europe rather than spend a research Euro in Austria. Not only does a research Euro spent in Europe come back to Austria as more than one research Euro, more importantly, a research Euro spent in Europe is highly leveraged, because 26 other countries must put in their respective research Euros as well (in fact more than 26, because there are also associated research countries like the United Kingdom or Switzerland).

It’s time to conclude. In short: Austria has made tremendous progress in the last decades. But don’t wait until any chainsaw swingers might come to power and you will be forced to make changes; we can make much more sensible and more effective changes on our own.

Rede des Vorsitzenden Thomas Henzinger im Rahmen des Panels zur nationalen FTI-Politik am 12. September 2025 bei den Technology Talks 2025.