Austria has created a new agency to coordinate the funding of applied research in fields such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, as well as to foster interaction between Austrian researchers and the international scientific community.
The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)–established by merging the Technology Promotion for Industry agency (FFF), the Austrian Space Agency (ASA), the Bureau for International Research and Technology Cooperation, and the Technology Impulse Society–will be a giant in the country's research funding landscape. Its budget could be as a high as 300 million euros a year, according to media reports.
The creation of the FFG is part of an ongoing reorganization of Austrian science funding bodies, which are being merged, scaled up, and streamlined as the country seeks to adapt to changes across Europe.
The Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development (RFT), founded in 2000 to help formulate a new national science policy, welcomed the creation ...
