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Symbolfoto: Das AIT ist Österreichs größte außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtung

Center for Innovation Systems & Policy

The Center for Innovation Systems & Policy is a central node in national and international research and innovation networks and an important partner for public administration, companies, universities and research institutes. It is a think tank and advisor for the Austrian and European policy. Our scientists are dedicated to current and future challenges for research and innovation systems.

Research, technology development and innovation are of crucial importance for securing our economic well-being and for coping with major societal challenges. Against this background, we are dealing with current and future requirements for research and innovation systems, as well as with the options available to research, technology and innovation policy (RTI policy) and industry.

Building on latest methods to analyze R&I processes and systems, we use forward-looking approaches to help formulate RTI policy strategies for public authorities and firms. In fast-changing times as we see today, it is not enough to remedy deficits as they become apparent, but it is necessary to rather pursue a strategic and sometimes even visionary view on the future direction to take.

The Competence Unit Innovation & Industrial Dynamics  focuses on characterising and explaining the dynamics of innovation and industry. The Competence Unit’s strongly empirical focus covers the collection and processing of large quantities of data, such as R&D projects, patents and publications, as well as making surveys on startups or the application of innovations in industry. 

The Unit is organised into two Research Fields: Innovation Dynamics & Modelling focuses on the further development of the empirical-methodological basis, for example in the form of new data bases on innovation, new indicators or advanced econometric and agent-based simulation models. Innovation Systems & Digitalisation focuses primarily on their application in the description and anticipation of industrial transformation processes, especially in the context of digitalisation and decarbonisation as key drivers of transformation.

The second Competence Unit, Transformation Governance deals with the question of how research and innovation, as well as the frameworks within which they operate, can be organised to maximise its contribution to solving major societal challenges. Applied research at the Competence Unit focuses on analysing future challenges at the interface between technological and social development, developing instruments for research, technology and innovation policy and associated policy areas, and addressing issues related to the governance of socio-technical transformation processes. The Unit has two Research Fields: Societal Futures and Innovation Policy & Transformation.

In the research field Societal Futures, we investigate new signals and patterns in technological and socio-economic developments with the help of forward-looking and participatory methods, in order to identify future challenges for government policy and corporate strategy. The research field Innovation Policy & Transformation focuses on the development, assessment and evaluation of policy instruments and governance structures in RTI policy.

The employees from different scientific disciplines are integrated in international research networks. The center works together with several national and international universities in the field of innovation- and governance research.

Competence Unit
Industrial & Innovation Dynamics

Competence Unit
Transformative Governance

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