SIP Talks
The Regional Impact of Austrian Higher Education Institutions
A NLP-based mapping of the (regional) Research, Technology and Innovation Landscape of Austria
Decry YaeAn exploratory, data-driven look at how knowledge radiates from campus to region — and what it means for RTI policy.
How much do Austria’s 77 higher education institutions really shape the innovation capacity of their regions — and can we measure it? This study maps the Austrian research and innovation system through 387,436 publications and funded projects (2014–2025), drawn from OpenAlex, the FWF, FFG, aws and the EU Framework Programmes. Using large language models and semantic clustering, it distils this vast text corpus into 26 thematic clusters and five research domains, revealing where each province sets its accents — from Vienna’s broad coverage to Styria’s technology-oriented profile and Tyrol’s focus on medicine and the life sciences.
The findings challenge common assumptions: HEIs appear in 98% of recorded projects, companies in just 12.5% — and 57% of those company collaborations reach across borders, a marker of a highly internationalised system.
Resources
- Hannes Leo: Die regionale Strahlkraft der österreichischen Hochschulen, 2026.
- Präsentation des SIP Talks von Hannes Leo [PDF]
About the person
Hannes Leo
Hannes Leo is an economist with 30+ years' experience in economic research, policy advice and evaluation across research, technology and innovation, industrial and competitiveness policy, digitalisation, regulation. Managing Director and co-founder of cbased and Board Member of the EFIS Centre (Brussels), he advises funders, ministries and international bodies, designs participatory, evidence-based strategy processes, and develops data-driven methods to map research landscapes.