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Innovation
The ISTplus Program has received funding from the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under
the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754411.
featuring an open, bottom-up
international recruiting
process, truly interdisciplinary
research
options, a Targeted Competence
Building program,
and a secondment scheme
with an intersectoral network
of partners.
Cross-boundary network
The ISTplus postdoc program is a first step in a longer-term
undertaking to establish close interaction
and cross-fertilization between stakeholders from
different sectors. As a consequence the program will
be carried out with a partner network, incl. SMEs, applied
research companies, organizations in the field of
tech transfer and science education, and commercial
enterprises. A secondment scheme will kick-start and
facilitate cross-boundary networking and translational
research. Fellows will be supported in the choice
Fotos: IST Austria/Nadine Poncioni
of the right partner, in setting up a research plan, and
may opt for an extension of the fellowship for up to
six months to enable intersectoral mobility. Various
events, workshops, trainings, and further activities in
the area of tech transfer will cultivate an open-minded
entrepreneurial spirit among program participants.
Fellows planning to pursue intersectoral co-operations
even after their fellowships will be given the option
to do so by applying to the internally funded one-year
TWIST-fellowship.
Translation to economy
The project to build a science and technology park for
research-intensive enterprises adjacent to the IST Austria
campus is one of the key actions to establish an
innovative ecosystem at and around its campus. The
completion of the first buildings is expected for 2018.
Already now, IST Austria rents out office space to future
residents of the tech park, that are interested in the
research fields present at IST Austria. Thus frequent
and direct interaction with stakeholders from different
sectors happens naturally and on a daily basis.
IST Austria was established by the federal government
of Austria and the state government of Lower Austria and
was inaugurated in 2009. Following the implementation of
the ambitious development plan, about 90 research groups
will be working in a highly modern environment by 2026,
modeled after international examples such as the Max
Planck institutes, ETH Zurich, and the Weizmann Institute of
Science. President of IST Austria is Thomas A. Henzinger, a
leading computer scientist and AAAS, ACM and IEEE Fellow.
www.ist.ac.at
The European Business and Investment Magazine iconannual 71