ITEA 3 Kick-Off in Vienna

On 23 April, the ITEA 3 Kick-off Austria took place at the ’Haus der Forschung’ in Vienna. The Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG, in collaboration with ITEA, organised this information event attracting about 35 Austrian participants.

In her opening speech, Andrea Höglinger, Head of European and International Programmes at Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG, highlighted the importance of EUREKA Clusters as initiatives which support the internationalisation and networking of participating organisations. EUREKA Clusters, as industry-driven initiatives executing projects with high commercial and innovation impact, are especially convenient for Austrian companies. She encouraged Austrian industry and SMEs to take part in Cluster projects and to use ITEA 3 and other Clusters to build up their networks and their international visibility. She also expressed her gratitude to ITEA 3 and CATRENE guests from abroad, who had come to Vienna to offer cooperation opportunities to Austrian participants.

ITEA Chairman Rudolf Haggenmüller emphasised the importance of the software industry in Europe in terms of market share and job creation. He presented ITEA, its Vision 2030 report and demonstrated innovation and the commercialisation of research results by highlighting a few ITEA project success stories. Finally, he invited Austrians to participate in ITEA 3 and join the PO Preparation Days on 23-24 September in Amsterdam.

Norbert Lehner (Infineon Technologies) showed the importance of semiconductors and hardware industry in Europe as well as the role of the CATRENE Cluster as facilitator of regaining the European competitiveness. Irina Šlosar presented opportunities in the EURIPIDES 2and Celtic-Plus Clusters.
Karin Ruzak of FFG explained the funding of participation in EUREKA Clusters within General Programmes and Georg Niklfeld described the wide range of ICT thematic programmes as possible funding scheme for participation of Austrian consortia in EUREKA Clusters.

Andreas Eckel from TTTech Computertechnik presented the results of the ITEA 2 Project SAFE and their importance for TTTech while Franz Schrank from austriamicroystems outlined the experiences of the CATRENE project COCOA. EEN’s services in the area of technology commercialisation and partner search was explained by Thomas Röblreiter.

In the afternoon, the participants had the opportunity to talk to the different Cluster representatives about their project ideas and possibilities to present them at the forthcoming Project Preparation Days as well as to representatives of the FFG about the funding procedures.

A full overview

To get a full overview of the ITEA 3 Kick-off Austria, please visit:

• For the programme including the presentations: Programme 
• For the pictures: Photo gallery
• Webpages FFG: FFG