Energy R&D 2024: Public Expenditures in Austria
Bibliographic Data
Energy Research Survey 25/2025A. Indinger, F. Bettin, M. Rollings
Publisher: BMIMI
German, 155 pages
Content Description
Public spending on research, development and demonstration projects in the energy sector totalled 401.1 million euros in 2024. This figure exceeded the previous Austrian record in 2023 by 90.3 million euros (a 29.1% increase).
As in previous years, the "Energy efficiency" area is in first place with expenditure of 184.0 million euros, an increase of 51.5% compared to the previous year. This is followed at a considerable distance by the areas of "Renewable energy sources" with 69.1 million euros (an increase of 132.4% compared to 2023) and "Hydrogen and fuel cells" with a slight increase to 65.3 million euros. The "Other power and storage technologies" area accounted for 40.5 million euros (+30.3%), while the "Other cross-cutting technologies and research" area accounted for 36.3 million euros (-41.1%). In the "Fossil fuels" area, investments rose to 4.7 million euros, which is particularly attributable to the area of CO2 capture and storage (CCS), while they fell slightly in the "Nuclear fission and fusion" area to 1.2 million euros (-16.9%).
83.5% of the expenditure presented in this report in 2024 is direct financing from funding bodies (federal government, federal states, funds). The federal ministries provided 278.1 million euros for programmes in 2024, the majority of which (152.3 million euros) can be attributed to the former Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK). The Climate and Energy Fund reduced investments by a third to 43.4 million euros. The expenditure reported by the federal states totalled 5.7 million euros, with Styria leading the way with 1.8 million euros, followed by Upper Austria with 1.5 million euros and Vienna with 0.9 million euros. The category "FFG basic programmes" contributed 4.7 million euros. At 2.8 million euros, the funding provided by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) was only around a tenth of the unusually high level of the previous year.
The remaining 17.5% is accounted for by in-house research at research institutions financed by federal or state funds. The Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and Silicon Austria Labs dominated the use of own funds in energy research at non-university research institutions with 26.8 and 18.4 million euros, respectively. The reported own resources expenditure of the universities (including the Institute of Science and Technology Austria – ISTA) rose to 17.8 million euros. By far the highest expenditure came from the TU Wien (12.9 million euros). Expenditure from the universities of applied sciences' own funds also increased slightly, totalling 1.7 million euros in 2024.
Around 1,350 projects and activities were recorded in 2024. 42.1% of the funds were used for applied research, while expenditure on experimental development accounted for 48.6%, a significantly higher proportion than in 2023 (28.9%). Investments in first-of-its-kind demonstration amounted to 6.1%, while those for energy-related research were 3.2%.
In 167 out of 387 of the projects commissioned by or via the FFG in 2024, at least one woman held a leading position in the consortium. More projects were led by women in 2024 than in previous years: 92 projects or almost one in four projects. On average, these female project managers were responsible for projects with a comparable funding cash value to their male colleagues, meaning the gap was almost closed for the first time. The proportion of women responsible for the technical coordination of an organisation in the consortium is 20.6%. The respective proportions vary greatly between the topics worked on and the funding programme lines.