Today, the closing event of Minister Hahn’s dialogue on science and research took place.
There are two points that I take from that event
- In order to reach the “3% target” (as outlined in the Lisbon and Barcelona objectives), governmental and public institutions can further stimulate research by rethinking procurement processes. The volume of these processes in Austria is estimated at 40 Billion EUR, about 10% of that could be earmarked with innovation. I.e., the idea is that public agencies and the government foster innovation by asking tenderers to develop new/innovative solutions that require some amount of research and have a good leverage (for all of us). Examples mentioned (mainly with respect to environmental themes) include the British government that has recently advertised a call for low carbon vehicles in the U.K. (volume: 50 Mio. Pounds).
My estimation: this is an excellent idea. Mainly because it will support a shift in mindset, i.e., everyone will be thinking in terms of innovation and research. It needs however, IMHO, a substantial critical mass and adds extra complexity.
- Promotion of people in fundamental research. The idea here is to develop a programm following the COMET-schema (K2-K1-K-Projekt) in terms of excellence targeted at supporting people’s careers. Details are still missing, typically one would have a look at the science funds existing funding schemes (which could simply be “boosted” rather than developing new programmes). Press article at http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=3397370.
June 30th, 2008
… Georg Gottlob, definitely one of the best (the best?) Austrian computer scientists received the status of an ACM fellow. See http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=3385212 (in German, Der Standard) and http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases-2007/fellows-2007.
June 20th, 2008
By law, the Austrian ministries have to publish yearly a status report on research, technology and innovation. I find it interesting that they cite a study on PhD development in Austria (Pechar et al. 2008). One of the great figures can be found on p. 88: reasons why students decide to pursue a PhD. Number is pure interest. I think this is excellent news!
The latest report can be found at http://www.bmwf.gv.at/uploads/tx_bmwfcontent/ftb_2008.pdf. Page 88 gives the following figure:
June 20th, 2008
I happened to be member of the jury of the ITS project award. The idea of the award is to motivate high-school students to engage in science and technical development and secondly, to demonstrate the high quality of these kind of projects. The jury was composed of R. Hittmair (BCCS), U. Hofmann (FH Urstein), R. Meisl (Land Salzburg), M. Wallinger (Siemens Salzburg), B. Wieder (Palfinger) and S. Reich (Salzburg Research).
Nominees were
- BHAK Grazerbach: Archment – Archeology Management
- BHAK Wien 10: xpense Haushaltsbudget-Rechner
- HTL Braunau: Universal Web Control
- HTL Hallein: CAE – Computer Aided Education
- HTL Ottakring: MPZ MusicBuddy
- HTL Rennweg: “MMORPG”
- HTL Saalfelden: Motorisierte Knieschiene
- HTL Salzburg: VTTG – Voith Tension & Thickness Gauge
- HTL Wels: Modernisierung eines Kernspintomographen
- Karlsgymnasium Bad Reichenhall: Pathfinding
The winner is HTL Saalfelden, motorisierte Knieschniene. This is a device that is low(er) cost and lower weight for rehabilitation of knee injuries.
All presentations were top class!!! Many had videos to demonstrate usage scenarios (some of them even with a fancy storyboard – “Archeology Management”), all presenters were truly professional. Some of the projects had web-sites (“xpense“), some folders (“MPZ – MusicBody”), … the software demonstrated (live!) was of high quality; some even made it into products (such as “Universal Web Control”).
June 3rd, 2008
