Chapter 3.1 presents the analysis of Austria’s funding programs in the field of energy research and chapter 3.2 presents the results of the survey.
After repeated requests to FFG, no information on acceptance rates was disclosed. A report was found that included information on the acceptance rate for the research call “Energieforschung 2018”. In this call, the acceptance rate was about 17% [ 29 ].
Fig 3 gives an overview of the project size in terms of project partners (y axis) and funding volume (x axis). Since no information on budgets was available for the projects in the research call "Stadt der Zukunft", a total of 91 projects from the research calls "Energieforschung" and "Vorzeigeregion" were analyzed. Two projects have a funding less than €100k; 19 projects between €101-300k; 10 projects between €301-500k; 20 projects between €501-700k; 16 projects between €701-1M; 9 projects between €1–1.5M; 3 projects between €1.5-2M; 7 projects between €2-3M, 2 projects between €3-4M, and 1 project each between €4-5M and more than €5M.
Table 1 shows the share of project leads per partner category. The table shows a similar distribution for the calls Stadt der Zukunft and Energieforschung, where most projects are led by universities. In call Vorzeigeregion, most projects are led by partners from industry. This could be explained by the fact that projects in the Vorzeigeregion usually have a high Technology Readiness Level (TRL).
Fig 2. Composition of projects for the research calls Stadt der Zukunft (average for the years 2019, 2020, 2021), Energieforschung (average for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, no data were available for the years 2020 and 2021.), and Vorzeigeregion.
Fig 2 gives an overview of the composition of projects; no distinction is made between project lead and project partners. A total of 158 projects were analyzed. The figure shows a similar distribution for the three research calls. Most of the partners come from industry (more than 50%), followed by partners from the categories "university" (16–21%) and "non-university research" (12–17%).
The following research calls in the field of energy were identified and analyzed below: “Stadt der Zukunft (Eng.: city of the future)”, “Energieforschung (Eng.: energy research)”, and “Vorzeigeregion (Eng.: flagship region). Responses from the survey (see Section 3.2) also indicate that these are the most important research challenges in the field of energy research. However, the aim of this analysis is not to provide a complete overview of calls in which projects in the field of energy can be submitted, but rather to provide an overview of project compositions (research institutes, industries, etc.), project budgets, acceptance rates, etc.
3.2 Empirical results
Of those surveyed in the field of research, 29 responses were from "non-academic research", 18 from "University", 10 from "Fachhochschule", 4 from "research companies" and 2 did not provide any further information. Twenty-four of the respondents were Professor/Chief Investigator/Lab-Head, 19 were post-docs, 19 were researchers without PhDs, and one person did not provide more specific information. Thirty-nine respondents indicated that their most recent FFG project application in the field of energy was submitted to “Stadt der Zukunft”, 32 to “Energieforschung”, 19 to “Vorzeigeregion”, and 13 to "Other."
Of those surveyed in the field of industry, 6 responses were from people working in large companies (over 250 employees), 3 in medium-sized companies (between 50–250 employees), 8 in small-sized companies (less than 50 employees), 2 in start-ups, and 2 in administration. Eight people were in leading positions (CEO, CTO), 6 were in middle management, 5 were working in research and development positions, and 2 did not specify their current position. Six respondents indicated that their most recent FFG project application in the field of energy was submitted to “Vorzeigeregion”, 5 to “Energieforschung”, 4 to “Stadt der Zukunft”, and 6 to "Other”.
3.2.1 Verification. A total of 16 participants responded to the verification. One of 16 respondents mentioned that he/she answered the question in hours rather than days; another mentioned that he/she could not remember exactly whether he/she had given the answer in days or hours. Fig 4 shows the answer of the verification sample to the question “How many days (1 day = 8 hours) did your organization spend, in total (including your time), working on the proposals (as lead and/or partner)?” One respondent answered the question only for “lead”. PPT PowerPoint slide
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TIFF original image Download: Fig 4. Responses of the verification sample (see chapter 2.2.3) to the question “what total number of days they and their organization in total spent preparing proposals”. Each bar represents one response. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282320.g004
3.2.5 Research proposals per year. Respondents were asked, "How many research proposals have you personally been involved in over the past 12 months?"; the results are shown in Fig 9. PPT PowerPoint slide
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TIFF original image Download: Fig 9. Share of responses for the different categories; responses were collected as single choice for the categories shown on the x axis. Each bar represents the share of responses for the respective category. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282320.g009 Over 40% of researchers work on more than 6 applications per year. The median time it takes researchers to prepare proposals (regardless of lead or partner) is 13 days. With 6 applications, this totals 78 days per year, which corresponds to 31% of working days—which are, on average, 251 per year in Austria; 10 applications correspond to 52% of the time.
3.2.6 Likert-scale questions. Results from the 5-point Likert-scale questions are presented using diverging stacked bar charts in Fig 10 (for research) and Fig 11 (for industry). Since the neutral responses are visualized separately, it is easier to identify trends regarding agreement and disagreement with certain statements. Respondents were asked to indicate how much they agreed with certain statements. PPT PowerPoint slide
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TIFF original image Download: Fig 10. Responses from research based on a 5-point Likert scale. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282320.g010 PPT PowerPoint slide
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TIFF original image Download: Fig 11. Responses from industry based on a 5-point Likert scale. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282320.g011 Ninety-two percent of researchers strongly agree or agree that a researchers spend too much time writing proposals in the current third-party funding system, and this even though proposal writing has significant benefits that researchers acknowledge, including agreement that writing proposals helps them to develop new ideas or that it leads to new collaborations. This is in line with findings from other studies (see e.g. [16]). Ten percent of researchers agree or strongly agree with the statement that “the current competitive third-party funding systems has a positive effect on the quality of research”. Fourteen percent of researchers agree or strongly agree with the statement that “it is simple to find suitable industry partners and convince them of the benefits of research projects”. This is in line with the fact that 77% of the respondents from industry agree or strongly agree with the statement that “we are very often contacted by research partners regarding research projects”. Forty-six percent of respondents from industry agree or strongly agree that they join projects for strategic reasons (e.g. to support research partners) and not because projects are important for them; on the other hand, 41% of industry respondents agree or strongly agree that research partners introduce new ideas that have great potential for them. Sixty percent of respondents from industry agree or strongly agree with the statement that research projects have had a significant impact on their organization in the past few years. Thirty-six percent of respondents from industry agree with the statement that research partners have expertise and knowledge that industry is lacking; likewise, 36% agree or strongly agree that Austria’s research partners are excellent by international standards.