30 September 2026 Research and Technology Report 2026 Hanke: It's about the jobs of tomorrow. Research must be translated more into value creation.

Research and Technology Report 2026 shows Austria's strong starting position. Focus on key technologies, technological sovereignty and effective research funding.

Austria continues to invest at a high level in research and development in 2026. According to the Research and Technology Report 2026, R&D expenditures are expected to reach 17.63 billion euros or 3.34 percent of gross domestic product this year. This keeps Austria ahead of the European target value of three percent. Austria recently ranked third within the EU in terms of research rate.

The Research and Technology Report 2026, presented today in the Science Committee of the National Council, places resilience and technological sovereignty at the heart of geopolitically challenging times. Research and innovation are increasingly understood as strategic resources: They are intended to help reduce dependencies, identify risks earlier and strengthen Europe's technological capacity to act.

Minister for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure Peter Hanke: “Austria invests heavily in research and has an excellent starting position for this. However, what matters most to me is not just how much money we allocate, but what we achieve with it. We need to concentrate our resources where they develop the greatest leverage for innovation, value creation, and high-quality jobs.”

This is precisely what the Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI) aligns its research and innovation policy with. At its centre are key technologies and areas of strength as well as the support of industrial transformation. At the same time, funding procedures should be simplified, processes within funding agencies streamlined, and research results brought into application more quickly.

Around one billion euros for key technologies

With the Industry Strategy 2035 and the Research, Technology and Innovation (RTI) Pact 2027-2029, the federal government is placing special emphasis on key technologies and areas of strength. The BMIMI plans to allocate approximately one billion euros for this between 2026 and 2029. The focus includes Artificial Intelligence, chips and semiconductors, quantum technologies, advanced production and material technologies, as well as space technologies.

Minister Hanke: “Those who master key technologies create economic strength and technological capacity for action. Our goal must therefore be to retain research and know-how in Europe and derive as much value creation in Austria from it as possible. Whether it is AI, chips, quantum, new materials or space technologies, it is no longer just about research policy. It concerns the competitiveness of our location and the jobs of tomorrow.”

A concrete example is the transformation offensive of around 600 million euros for 2026 to 2029, which specifically targets Austrian areas of strength such as energy, environmental, and mobility technologies. Additionally, there are Austrian investments of 340 million euros in the ESA for the coming years. This aims to strengthen European technological sovereignty in space and simultaneously leverage market potential for Austrian companies.

Austria successful in Horizon Europe

Austria is also strongly positioned at the European level. Austrian participants now record more than 4,000 participations in Horizon Europe, the EU's current research and innovation programme. By August 2026, Austrian institutions had secured 1.973 billion euros in European Union (EU) funding.

Another focus of Hanke is the economic utilisation of research results. State research funding should more effectively contribute to the creation of new products, companies, production capacities, and jobs from research. Public procurement is also expected to play a larger role in the future. By the end of the year, the action plan for strategic public procurement will be developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Economics. The goal is to use the public sector more as anchor and reference customers for innovative technologies, thereby supporting European value creation, resilience, and technological sovereignty.

Minister Hanke concludes: “Austria is strong in research. Our ambition now must be to translate this strength even better into market innovations, production, and jobs. For me, research is particularly successful when a good idea becomes a technology, a marketable product comes from a technology, and value creation and good jobs arise in Austria and Europe from it.”