Siegfried Reich

OSTINA – Office of Science and Technology

The Office of Science & Technology at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC is a strategic interface for science, research and science policy between Austria and North America.

The idea is to establish links between Austrian researchers in North America and Austria (e.g. for bringing people back to Austria, this is part of the brainpower initiative of BMVIT).

Add comment September 27th, 2006

European Researchers’ Night

And another big event is taking place today: the European Researchers’ Night 2006. Unfortunately, there is no Austrian event.

Add comment September 22nd, 2006

Today is OneWebDay (OWD)

Today is OneWebDay. The motivation is to celebrate the Web; the inspiration is driven by “earth day“.

Austria’s contribution to the series of events is a talk to the perspectives of the Internet in Vienna’s Museumsquartier (This is reported by ISPA Austria).

Add comment September 22nd, 2006

Knowledge and Power

Since a while, I am listening to weekly science podcasts, for instance by Deutschland Radio, www.dradio.de. The one of September 10, 2006, deals with the implications of September 11 (2001) on science and research in the US and more specifically, with the relationship of scientists and the Bush administration.

The arguments are as follows:

• there have been changes in research themes, for instance towards terror-attach prevention technologies, etc.
• along with the change in themes went a change in budget allocation. The NSF recently got less money for basic research (apparently the first time in history).
• it is much more difficult for foreign scientists to get to the US
• more and more, the Bush administration tries to influence the presentation of research results, most specifically with respect to results of climate research.

Dr. Alan Leshner (chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS is cited). There is a (German) written report available at http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/wib/541287/.

Add comment September 14th, 2006

Survey on mobility of Austrian Researchers

A recent survey “Austrian survey on Obstacles for the Mobility of Researchers” by Sonja Heintel, Christoph Hahn & Renate Fischer, published as http://www.researchinaustria.info/survey.pdf points out the most serious problems for mobile researchers.

(This image is taken from http://www.researchinaustria.info/survey.pdf).

Not really surprising, but still good as confirmation, is that funding, kindergarten & schooling and job offers in general are the three most serious problems. For the study, almost 14000 people have been asked in 999 returned a questionnaire.

I found the reference to this study in the ÖAD newsletter (Austrian exchange service, see www.oead.ac.at). BTW: www.grants.at is a good site for grants in Austria.

Add comment September 14th, 2006

Austrian Success in the 6th Framework Programme of the EU

Sabine Herlitschka from FFG, recently announced statistical data on Austria’s competitiveness in the 6th European Framework Programme. See e.g. a report in Computerworld.at.

Unfortunately, the report does directly refer to data. The ministry of science and education coordinates twice a year a status report (Proviso, see http://www.bmbwk.gv.at/proviso and an actual report from spring 2006 http://www.bmbwk.gv.at/medienpool/13535/fopro1043din130606_20060612.pdf).

Another excellent initiative is “project intelligence”, see http://pi.ijs.si/, which allows browsing for FP5 and FP6 projects by projects, countries, etc. One of the core issues is with all data, that there is quite some dodgy-ness in the acquisition: most data only refers to proposals (not actual projects). Still, it is a valueable indicator for international performance of organisations (and Salzburg Research has been particularly well in FP5, FP6 has no final data available yet).

Add comment September 12th, 2006

Researchers leave Austria

This is one of the – very few – articles in Salzburg’s local newspaper, the “Salzburger Nachrichten“, on research:

• http://www.salzburg.com/sn/06/09/11/artikel/2385741.html and
• http://www.salzburg.com/sn/06/09/11/artikel/2385809.html

are about the fact, that many excellent researchers are leaving Austria (the number discussed is 400 per year).

The Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology tries to counteract with the brainpower initiative.

I personally believe that it is mainly a reason of perspective, why researchers turn away: funding – and even positions – are not secured in the long run. Even in highly competitive countries such as the US, there are tenure positions (which in Austria mainly exist for current staff at Universities, not so much the “new” people). The government’s objective of re-newing the University system has been disproportionate with respect to this issue.

Add comment September 11th, 2006

Pro Forschung

This is something that should be self-evident: independence of research, highest-quality in research, …. Still it seems that Austria’s largest non-University research organisation, ARC Seibersdorf Research, is in need of that. Have a look at http://www.pro-forschung.at/.

Add comment September 9th, 2006