EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With cybersecurity gaining ever more importance, Austria aims to promote its strategic strengths while enhancing its digital sovereignty in selected areas using governmental innovation support. The project focused on gaining visibility and insights on relevant domestic key players and the effectiveness of current incentives to promote innovation and market adoption in cybersecurity. A look beyond our national borders is intended to illuminate innovation funding in other countries, aiming to assist and inform decision-making at national and European levels.

Goal

An analysis of the cybersecurity innovation ecosystem in Austria, in particular the identification of domestic innovation drivers as well as an evaluation of existing innovation incentives in the field of national and regional cybersecurity. This includes actionable strategic recommendations through benchmarking with leading countries.

Methodology

A market analysis of the status quo in Austria was carried out by the project team and divided into three areas: research institutions, firms, startups and various incentive systems. Research on local key innovation drivers, including an assessment and evaluation of existing innovation incentives, has been conducted. This was combined with an international benchmarking with six leading countries in cybersecurity. Structured insights from stakeholder interviews with renowned industry experts were analyzed and clustered to derive common pain points and global best practices. Based on the results, three SMART-based recommendations were developed.

Results

The project team identified the top research institutions for cybersecurity in Austria and listed more than 4000 Austrian cybersecurity relevant firms, including a proposal for a suitable taxonomy and categorization of local companies. Furthermore, an overview of current innovation incentives was created, reviewed, and benchmarked with best practices of six leading countries in this field, based on global indices for comparison and database research. Enhanced by clustered insights from more than 15 interviews with key industry experts in Austria, the project team developed actionable strategic recommendations with implementation roadmaps and pillars to further develop innovation programs and establish new incentive ideas on a national or regional level.

Cooperation Partner

• NCC-AT (Bundeskanzleramt)
  Herrengasse 23
  1010, Vienna, Austria
  https://www.ncc.gv.at/



 

Contact Person

• Marlies Hofmann, Referentin, NCC-AT - marlies.hofmann@bka.gv.at

• Hanna Wilhelmer, Projektleiterin, NCC-AT - hanna.wilhelmer@bka.gv.at

Student Team

• Dennis Horich
  Florian Leissing
  Luka Pavlovic
  Max Terbuyken
  Mathis Weidmann

Project Manager

• Dr. Dorothee Horvath

• Mag. Benjamin Monsorno