ICT of the future

“ICT of the Future” is the funding programme of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) for the promotion of high-quality research, development and innovation in information and communication technology, interlinked with application areas and societal challenges.

The programme supports ICT innovation in a comprehensive manner and aims to contribute towards the goal of the federal government to lead Austria from the group of Innovation Followers to the group of Innovation Leaders, making it one of the most innovative countries in the EU.

Objectives

With its focus on generic ICT research and development, the programme pursues the following goals aimed at increasing innovative strength in this sector:

  • Develop lead technologies
  • Achieve lead positions in competitive markets
  • Establish and extend Austria's lead position as a research location
  • Train and attract top scientists and research staff

In order to reach these goals, the programme focuses on four technological topic areas, several cross-cutting topics as well as particular application areas, in which these topics are of key relevance. This clearly reflects the interlinking of today's ICT research, where ICT topics are addressed in the context of concrete fields of application.

This structure allows both for a high degree of flexibility as well as a broad range of topics while also enabling targeted goals and priorities to be set. The topic areas defined in the programme and supplemented in the individual calls with relevant application domains are

  • Mastering Complex ICT Solutions: Systems of Systems
  • Justifying Trust: Safe and Secure Systems
  • Conquering Data: Intelligent Systems
  • Ensuring Interoperability: Interfaces of Systems

Calls for Proposals

The first three Calls adressed Smart Production and Smart Energy. The fourth Call in 2015 adressed „Cyber Physical Production Systems“ and „Big Data for Space Missions“.

Funded Projects

Funded Projects addressing the manufacturing sector focus on topics of maintenance and process optimisation, while projects in the field of energy primarily cover the topics of open data and buildings.

The projects in the open application area naturally present the highest degree of diversification with a focus on visualisation and data analysis.