Research – Department of Business

The increasing use of artificial intelligence in companies poses numerous new challenges for works councils. In addition to the emergence of new professional fields and the development of new competencies, potential risks such as discrimination, explainability of results, deception through manipulation and the design of the cooperation of employees with artificial intelligence are central challenges. Through the research approach, the participating works councils acquire the know-how to understand and critically question the development and implementation of applications in the field of artificial intelligence in the company and to increasingly bring the interests of employees into the process. They are to be provided with tools for assessing the operational purpose of use, for an operational risk assessment of the planned AI application, but also a checklist for assessing the change in working conditions when using AI and human-machine interaction, and thus to have opportunities to intervene in order to safeguard existing co-determination rights. Furthermore, basic knowledge about European and national frameworks of trustworthy/human-centered AI will be provided.

Due to the diverse composition of the project team and the application-oriented research design, a contribution is made to the focus area "Change in the world of work", in particular to the project fields "New (digital) organizational forms of work and co-determination" and "Automation, robotics and artificial intelligence".

The project is funded by the Chamber of Labour for Lower Austria (Arbeiterkammer Niederösterreich).

There is a strong need for a more sustainable and community-centred tourism curriculum in Mozambique, which stems first of all from the nature of tourism in Mozambique, which, to date, is still largely focused on “sun sea sand” holidays along the 2,700 kms of coastline. Mozambique has enormous potential (cultural heritage, flora & fauna), however, it does not yet experience a large share of the tourist market, with the situation having become even more challenging in times of COVID-19. In addition, the sector is still hugely dominated by foreign investment, mainly from South Africa, contributing little to the balance of payments and poverty alleviation in the country. Rural tourism thereby remains a neglected field - despite its worldwide recognised potential to deliver both tangible and intangible benefits and create new and alternative livelihoods for those experiencing poverty. This lack in rural tourism development goes hand in hand with a lack in HE training to develop rural and sustainable tourism, with nearly no courses in the country focused on rural areas, particularly at MA level.

This project takes the form of a seed funding, aimed at the APPEAR Academic Partnership Funding by the Austrian Development Agency, seeking to target these challenges with the help of capacity building in Higher Education in Mozambique for sustainable rural tourism development. It does so through fostering a collaboration between IMC Krems and Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM/ ESHTI) Mozambique to enable the sharing of practises in regards to sustainable rural tourism education and development in order to contribute to curriculum development at UEM, as well as skills development within sustainable rural tourism research and teaching. Part of the project is the development of an MA curriculum on sustainable tourism (the first Master's programme in Mosambik) and the design of two new, practise-orientated and jointly delivered (between IMC and ESHTI) courses on sustainable rural tourism, which also support rural entrepreneurs and help diversify rural livelihoods.

Cultural and natural attractions are at the heart of the Lower Austrian tourism offer. However, climate change has an impact on their appeal and offered experiences.

Therefore, the project "ClimATT II" will deal with the following questions: In which way has climate change an impact on tourism attractions in Lower Austria? What are the challenges and opportunities for different regions and what are the economic consequences? What are possible measures to mitigate consequences of climate change? How have needs and desires of visitors changed due to climate change and what are the requirements for the tourism industry?

In two major studies both supply and demand side will be investigated. The aim of the project is not only to get an in-depth understanding of the impact of climate change on tourism attractions in Lower Austria but also to examine possiblilities as to how tourism offers can be adapted in order to stay attractive and competitive in the future.

The project "ClimATT II" is conducted by IMC University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with BOKU University in Vienna until the end of 2023 and is fundet by the FTI-fund for "Environment, climate and resources" from the Federal Government of Lower Austria.

The existing and forecast shortage of skilled workers in long-term care threatens to worsen due to the COVID-19 crisis and the associated higher fluctuation in nursing staff. The project helps to enable sustainable careers in long-term care and thus benefits caregivers and those in need of care equally.

In the course of a transdisciplinary mixed-methods research design, problem areas are identified and starting points for sustainable careers in long-term care are shown. For this purpose, nursing staff, retired nursing staff and their company representatives are actively involved in the research process, so that a deep understanding of problems is generated. Based on the point of view of those affected, solutions are developed. A quantitative questionnaire survey on the main topics of health, satisfaction and productivity complete the results of the project.

The project is funded by the Chamber of Labor of Lower Austria (Projektfonds Arbeit 4.0).

The Swiss Federal Institute for Intellectual Property (IPI) contracted IMC UAS Krems to analyse the extent to which IP has been used by Swiss SMEs and start-ups for finance purposes. The study employed a qualitative approach with expert interviews and document and literature analysis.

Consumers are increasingly making more conscious purchasing decisions. Reasons for this are, for example, climate change, the return to regionality and seasonality, increased environmental awareness, as well as attitudes caused by the Corona crisis.

Wine production has a relatively high ecological footprint compared to other agricultural products. Besides the prohibition of herbicides and insecticides, the problems of irrigation, vineyard treatments, cellar treatments, energy consumption, and marketing strategies have to be addressed.

The project analysed the expectations of consumers when buying organically, sustainably, and conventionally produced wine.

The funding partner was the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management.

This study aimed to identify elements of good practice for researchers dealing with standards and standardisation in the course of research projects funded by Horizon 2020. The study involved (a) screening the replies to a European Commission survey sent to 2,200 beneficiaries of Horizon 2020 with evidence of standardisation activities (valid responses obtained from 1,020 projects with a 46 % return rate) and (b) applying a set of exclusion (‘must have’) and bonus point criteria, derived from targeted literature and expert interviews. We then selected 40 projects exhibiting a range of ‘elements of good practice’ for case study analysis, which identified any additional elements of good practice. Results indicate the existence of a stable and recurring set of elements of good practice. One important result is that the more exploratory research activities and the more formal standardisation processes are different in nature and difficult to synchronise. Standardisation activities within a research project largely lead to a need to engage in wider stakeholder management. There need to be close ties between the research consortia and the technical committees that develop standards. Researchers’ awareness of and know-how about standardisation processes are frequently low, and the development of recognised performance indicators to track the success of technology transfer and valorisation activities is in its infancy. Recommendations were developed for universities / public research organisations (institutional level), researchers (project level), policymakers and the wider stakeholder community, and specifically regarding the development of performance indicators.

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Against the background of an ageing society, accompanied by growing care needs that cannot sufficiently be met by professional care services, informal long-term care (performed by relatives, spouses or friends) gains importance. This project examines 1) the gender-unequal distribution of informal long-term elderly care provision and its consequences for our society, 2) coping strategies informal caregivers develop to manage the often burdensome care situation, and 3) spatial and infrastructural factors that are tightly connected to the care situation and can largely vary between urban and rural areas.

The European Commission and the European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency (EISMEA) contracted a consortium led by the IMC University of Applied Sciences, Krems, to perform a study on the legal protection of trade secrets in the context of the data economy.

Data is seen as the "oil" of the 21st century. In modern open innovation processes, data is also shared much more frequently among firms than in the past (for purposes like big data analytics, predictive maintenenance, etc.). Among this data is also data that is commercially valuable and not not known to the general public. If firms take appropriate measure to protect such sensitive data, the legal tool of "trade secrets" provides protection against, e.g., industrial espionage and other forms of misappropriation.

Using a comprehensive interview programme and a survey with European firms in four sectors (automotive, financial services, health/life sciences, energy/utilities), the study seeks to understand whether trade secrets can be, as a tool, effectively and efficiently used for protecting shared data. The results feed directly into the law- and policy making processes at European level.

In order to help the European creative industries unleash the potential of new technologies and make the mostof them, the European Commission contracted a consortium including the IMC UAS to analyse:

(i) the management of copyright data linked to protected content. The study identified and quantified the economic impact of current issues related to metadata management in the copyright industries. The analysis investigated the ways in which new technologies can contribute to improving the efficiency and transparency of licensing of content and management of rights, while making more content accessible for end-users; and

(ii) the policy questions related to the interaction between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the creative industries, in particular concerning:

(a) the use of copyright-protected content as input of AI technologies; and

(b) the production of cultural outputs by or with the assistance of AI technologies.

The study provided the empirical basis to assess the potential impacts on the European creative industries.

Especially in recent years, Open Innovation (OI) has become established as an important new tool for innovation development and thus economic development. In addition to classic R&D cooperation, open innovation also includes new forms of cooperation such as cooperation across known industry boundaries or the inclusion of a "crowd", which has not yet existed in this form. Large and medium-sized companies are now even creating their own ecosystems and funding agency-like structures to cooperate with startups and SMEs in particular. However, there are still hardly any concrete empirical findings on these new forms of OI cooperation. The austria wirtschaftsservice Gesmbh (aws) therefore approached the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems to find out what kind of concrete support is needed by Austrian companies, especially SMEs, that are active in the field of open innovation. For this purpose, we conducted 11 qualitative expert interviews with open innovation managers of SMEs and large companies as well as with further OI experts. From these interviews and further selective literature research, we were able to identify four key areas in which the aws can become active and thus expand and strengthen its support offering in the area of promoting open innovation: (1) consideration of maturity levels & cooperation, (2) the aws as an OI multiplier, especially for start-ups, (3) intellectual property-specific measures, and (4) connectivity to the classic RTI funding system.

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The study uses the example of manufacturing companies in order to examine the extent to which employees' expectations of employers have changed against the backdrop of altered work content and tasks in the course of Industry 4.0.

On the one hand, the views of employees and employers will be collected using focus groups and expert interviews. On the other hand, a survey will be used to investigate the extent to which men and women differ in their assessment of these contents.

In this context, it is also essential to investigate the question of how far the change in working conditions and content also changes the expectations of the employer. Remuneration systems would have to be rethought accordingly and aspects that play a role beyond purely monetary payment would also have to come more into focus.

The expected results clarify changed expectations from the employee's point of view and enable employers to design appropriate personnel policy instruments in the course of personnel development and diversity management.

This research project is a dissertation project, funded by the NÖ Forschungs- und Bildungsges.m.b.H. (NFB).

The dissertation will deal with the following research questions:

1) From the point of view of consumers, producers and experts, which criteria should be used to assess the success of alternative consumer networks in sustainable development with focus on regional development?

2) How do selected Austrian alternative consumer networks perform in terms of sustainable development using these criteria?

3) Which role do information about these criteria play in the attraction of potential new members?

Planned Methods:

1) Systematic literature review

2) Qualitative interviews with consumers and producers in alternative consumer networks as well as with sustainable development experts

3) Web-based survey to rate the relative importance of possible criteria

4) Evaluation methods for sustainability criteria not defined yet, depending on the research outcomes of the aforementioned steps

5) Online experiment to examine effect of communicating sustainability criteria

The WBL4JOB project aims to enhance partnership between enterprises and HEIs and to increase graduates’ employability through development and implementation of supporting policy, legal framework and generic, flexible Apprenticeships Higher Education Model (AHEM) with the ultimate aim of promoting the work-based learning (WBL) in Armenia and Moldova.

The following project outputs/outcomes are expected to be sustainable after the end of the Erasmus+ programme funding:

- WBL Policy and Implementation Toolkit,

- 52 trained staff on WBL/apprenticeship policies, schemes and tools,

- 60 trained teaching staff/mentors on apprenticeship-oriented teaching/learning,

- National Policy for implementation of WBL in HE systems,

- 2 AHEMs, including an undergraduate one year apprenticeship based programme “Specialized Licence in Banking and Insurance” (SLBI),

- Amendments to national legislations supporting apprenticeship,

- 4 equipped universities,

- Partnership agreements for activities after lifetime of the project.

Period of realization: 2021-2024.

Objective of this project is to develop a Mobile Working Guide (MWG). The MWG will allow organizations to design and implement policies or rulebooks for the optimal use of mobile working. Contents and design of such policies or rulebooks is a cricital success factor for productivity of organizations and satisfaction of its employees when implementing mobile working. Special about the MWG is that companies will be enabled to develop mobile working policies or rulebooks without external help, since the MWG provides all necessary know-how and input required, including a regulatory topic catalogue, best practices and design model and a co-development design process. So, that a company will be able to get it right the first time. Or if a company does allow mobile working already, the MWG can used to optimize an existing mobile working policy or rulebook.

This project is funded by the representative chamber of worker of Lower Austria (Arbeiterkammer Niederösterreich).

The overall aim of the project is to develop a socially robust understanding of the impact and potential of migrant digital entrepreneurship on a regional socioeconomic system. Therefore, a transdisciplinary mutual learning process will help to develop a comprehensive system model. Furthermore, we distinguish two specific objectives: (i) deepening our understanding of Migrant Digital Entrepreneurship with regard to digital and technological trends in modern business models compared to other countries and/or regions in internatonal benchmarks and (ii) the identification of leverage points for interventions at various levels within the innovation system trough data-driven analytis.

The project is funded by Niederösterreichische Forschungs- und Bildungsges.m.b.H. (NFB).

MBIT has started its transformation towards 'AGILE ORGANIZATION'. This journey includes digitization, flexible working schemes as well as new office architecture. The transformation is supported by a multi-annual impact measurement study. Impact measurement allows to evaluate the progress achieved, based on facts and figures. I also enables to manage the transformation journey as such in a very precise manner.

Are recent information campaigns sufficient to counter the myths and the key negative beliefs around eMobility (like short range, insufficient charging infrastructure and high acquisition costs)?

If one considers the large information portals available for e-mobility, the potential still seems underused and existing portals are rather text-heavy and mainly include scientific and technical information. They rely on verbal (narrative/textual) persuasion. The disseminated information is usually provided by energy companies, environmental organizations or car manufacturers, which might compromise the credibility of the information as being biased towards a specific intention. Other means of persuasion like vicarious experiences and authentic visual storytelling (slice of life) successfully adopted by social media influencers are currently not used in this context.

The aim of the project is to positively influence the attitude of the Austrian public towards eMobility. This is done by bundling social media outlets (especially Instagram, Youtube and Twitter) and creating adequate content in form of visuals and authentic emotional stories of everyday life to refute the myths surrounding electric mobility. Within the framework of the project, a concept for the communication of e-mobility will be developed, based on entertainment theories, educational and scientific communication, design thinking and digital learning. A landing page will also be created to connect the individual outlets and, in particular, the content.

According to acceptance research, this communication represents a classical intervention. Therefore, the effectiveness of such communication interventions will be investigated by means of a scientific accompanying study.

The project is funded by the Climate and Energy Fund as part of the "Elektromobilität in der Praxis 2018" program.

The added value of the cooperation of start-ups with SMEs/family firms lies in the acceleration of the development of sustainable innovations by bringing together the different competences. Furthermore, intensive cooperation can also bring about a cultural change with regard to openness (open innovation) and strengthen future viability through new impulses at SMEs as well as increase the professionalism of market cultivation at start-ups. In addition, the cooperation can also be used to explore which forms of possible further cooperation are suitable for both partners.

Cooperation often also presents major challenges for both companies. Identifying possible partners and contact persons is just one of many initial challenges. Complications also often arise from the clash of different cultures: agile versus less dynamic work processes, different values and different willingness to take risks.

The project aims to achieve the following goals:

- Strengthening the competitiveness of Viennese SMEs and family firms and start-ups in particular.

- Systematic derivation of recommendations for action for SMEs and family firms on how they can sustainably develop new products, services and business models by using cooperation with start-ups.

- Building up sound competences and resources for projects with companies building on the core competences of these companies.

The NFB project on digital competence monitoring in manufactoring companies built on research on competence development and aligned it to Industry 4.0. The approach of the researchers of the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt and the Danube University Krems was based on Design-Based Research. In the research project practical experiences of production enterprises were collected and evaluated. Thus a competence model was developed, which was tested and adapted on the basis of these tests. This ensured continuous improvement and practical relevance of the model.

The project was funded by Niederösterreichische Forschungs- und Bildungsges.m.b.H. (NFB).

One of the core questions related to achieving climate protection targets is how to bring “exhausted” potential for climate protection more closely into line with what is theoretically possible. Established policy instruments such as legislation, regulations, subsidies, information and advice do not appear to be sufficient. So what part could social innovations and bottom-up initiatives play in speeding up the Energiewende (“energy transformation”)? Who are the agents of social innovation in civil society and bottom-up processes? How can their plans be supported? This project is designed to examine these key questions.

In this project, the project partners will assess energy- and climate protection-related social innovations and bottom-up processes, as well as potential key actors, and the findings will be appraised to determine their suitability for use in subsequent stages of the project. Action areas will be identified in which social innovations and bottom-up processes can play a part in bringing about the energy transformation. Ideas and approaches will then be developed and discussed in consultation with key actors from civil society as well as climate change and energy sector stakeholders. Recommendations will be drawn up on how actors involved in bottom-up processes and important agents of social innovation – with a focus on non-profit organisations and social enterprises – can be addressed and integrated into initiatives in future by the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund.

The project is being funded by the Climate and Energy Fund.

Tourism development, based on traditional and local knowledge is important for highlighting the cultural features which distinguish one region from another. Knowledge and skills of local people, crafts, customs, rituals, festivals, etc. can be seen as cultural capital or as the intangible cultural heritage of local population . The intangible cultural heritage is difficult to "safeguard", is often not easy to stage for the visitors of a region, and can be made accessible and tangible through innovative leisure activities.

In this research project, a concept for the simultaneous safeguarding, transfer and tourism valorization of traditional knowledge about nature will be created. Competences, practices and traditional knowledge of local people (e.g. about different crops, ecological gardening, medical plants etc.) are investigated in order to be made accessible to specific target groups and thus preserved. Experts and knowledge bearers, including older generations are identified and involved as informants. Scenarios for tourism development will be designed to ensure dialogue and knowledge transfer between regions, but also between generations. Furthermore, this tourism valorizatin can contribute to the safeguarding, promotion and development of intangible cultural heritage.

As a key player in the digital transformation of the automotive sector, Porsche Informatik is remodelling itself as a next-generation company. Two core components of its transformation strategy are agile architecture and organisation, and adopting new approaches with a view to implementing new-world-of-work approaches.

IMC Krems is providing academic support for the shift towards new, innovative working practices by means of performance assessment. Until 2020, the progress made by the organisation in the course of its transformation will be regularly evaluated, and areas in which optimisation and adjustments are required will be identified. To this end, the company’s productivity will be measured, as will the effectiveness of managerial approaches, which will be subject to fundamental changes as part of the transformation process. Overall, the performance assessment will equip employees and managers with a detailed “radar” for change – clear facts, figures and data will provide the basis for decision-making on the path towards establishing a next-generation business.

The research project will also open up important links to the university’s teaching activities, in particular to the Digital Business Innovation and Transformation and International Export and Business Management master programmes, as well as the Collaboration in the Next Generation Enterprise specialist module, where students will have the opportunity to participate in the research project as part of their master thesis. The project will also be covered in major publications, such as the new edition of and supplementary chapters for Unternehmen der nächsten Generation, published by Springer. Regular updates will be posted on The New World of Work blog at www.newworldofwork.wordpress.com.

The economy of the 21st century is affected by digitalization and accelerating innovation cycles. Start-ups seem to profit from the general economic development based globalization and digitalization. While Alpine Space can rely on growing and dynamic regional start-up ecosystems, many of these start-ups are facing obstacles when scaling up across Europe and beyond. The growing start-up communities are envisaged to link Alpine Space startup hubs, foster business acceleration, bridge SMEs-investors-policy-markets, involve actors in a community of opportunities. 11 European Partners (3x Italy, 3x France, 2x Slovenia, 1x Germany, 2x Austria) are working together in this EU funded project.

SCALE(up)ALPS aims to make sure that the Alpine Space first, than EU Single Market, are the launch bases of alpine start-ups into the global competition. The main goals are, to connect innovation actors, increase knowledge transfer as well as to enhance Alpine Space key high-growth SMEs business innovation potential. The project will focus on defining a start-up integrated ecosystem growth-strategy as well as Alpine Space services to grow tech companies accessing new markets or disruptive businesses in existing markets.

The Project ist funded by the Interreg Alpine Space Programme, a European transnational cooperation Programme for the Alpine region.

In family businesses, innovation behaviour is often largely shaped by the idiosyncrasies of the business family. For instance, the business family’s desire to sustain the business over generations provides long-term capital (patient capital) to the business and prompts family managers to make far-sighted investment decisions. Family businesses also often form part of strong and trusting social networks with stakeholders, creating many opportunities to mobilise people for new ideas.

However, despite the fact that family businesses retain a number of assets that are conducive to innovation, investigations comparing the innovation output in family businesses and non-family businesses show ambiguous results. These results suggest that family businesses are both more and less innovative. These inconsistencies may be due to paradoxical effects of family involvement, as the family not only constitutes a resource but also a liability for innovation. For instance, family businesses prefer to avoid projects associated with high risk because they do not want to gamble with the inheritance of family members. They prefer continuity which prompts them to rely on what is tried-and- trusted and adhere to family traditions, instead of trying new things. Empirical evidence also indicates that the innovative capacity of family businesses frequently decreases across generations. Thus, although family businesses often have great innovation potential, they are sometimes reluctant to make use of this. This phenomenon is also known as the ability-willingness paradox.

The question of how family businesses make use of their innovation capacity and why some family businesses are better innovators than others is therefore the focus of the current research project at the University of Applied Sciences Krems (in cooperation with the Research Institute for Family Businesses, Vienna University of Economics and Business).

The project is co-financed by the Province of Lower Austria (Department K3 - Science and Research) and leading companies in the region.

This project examined the revitalisation of green spaces to exploit their tourism potential as well as ways to enhance the quality of the visitor experience with respect to natural and cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible) in gardens and parks in Lower Austria and Southern Moravia. Furthermore, profiles and requirements of the various garden visitor segments were analysed. Based on these findings, a manual with quality criteria for the use of the managers of these green spaces was developed. New joint, cross-boarder garden tourism propositions were developed and presented.

The project was funded by the EU’s INTERREG V-A Austria- Czech Republic programme.

Websites: http://diegaerten.eu/https://www.at-cz.eu/at/ibox/pa-2-umwelt-und-ressourcen/atcz71_grunraum

From a tourism sector point of view, green spaces in cities represent increasingly important leisure spaces, and are gaining significance alongside cultural attractions such as museums, events and distinct whole areas of a city. The aims of this project are to find out what role public parks and gardens play in city breaks, whether green spaces give a city a competitive advantage, and to gain insights into the needs of different visitors in terms of how they experience green spaces in a city.

The project ist funded by the "Jubiläumsfonds" of the City of Vienna for the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

The Wine Lab knowledge alliance is aimed at establishing a structured university-business cooperation, by promoting active stakeholders dialogue and joint actions in order to generate innovative ideas for the sector growing, that can include either new solutions for technical problems and particularly new approaches to the market (agribusiness, place branding, etc.); promote exchange and mutual learning between producers and researchers; identify learning gaps, both in students’ curricula and in lifelong learning for wine makers, in order to provide tailored learning offer; foster entrepreneurship mind-set of students in agriculture; establish local hubs of innovation, linked across Europe.

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the EU.

Science and research play an important role in the sustainable development of tourism worldwide. This role, as well as the link between science, practice and politics, were strengthened in Armenia and Georgia by the CaucaSusT project. The project partners from Austria IMC UAS Krems and BOKU shared with local partners their expertise in the area of ​​sustainable tourism development as well as their experience in transdisciplinary research in order to create a suitable model for tourism research and teaching in these countries. Together with the Tbilisi State University and the Armenian State Pedagogical University, current problems of the sustainable tourism development in the pilot regions were identified and integrated into the university courses through case studies and field research. These transdisciplinary research and teaching methods provided students with insights into reality and facilitated concrete solutions for the local tourism economy.

The Academic Partnership between University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, (Lead Institution) IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Tbilisi State University and the Armenian State University will enable the project partners in Armenia and Georgia to address real problems of sustainable development - focusing on tourism development - in cooperation with the local population and other stakeholders. On a wider scale, the Academic Partnership will strengthen cooperation on academic activities on tourism development in the Caucasus region, and facilitate better coordination, coherence and integration of research outcomes into public policy in this field, via cooperating with and supporting activities of the regional Scientific Network for the Caucasus Mountain Region. The overall project goal is contribution to Capacity building for the universities in transdisciplinary teaching (case study teaching format, interdepartmental cooperation etc).

The Project is funded by the Austrian Partnership Programme in Higher Education and Research for Development (APPEAR) under the fifth call, implemented by the Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD).

The point of departure for this research project was the following question:

In what specific ways can the digital revolution known as Industry 4.0, with its new technologies and forms of work, help manufacturing companies in the region to stay competitive and therefore maintain and create prosperity and jobs?

Implementation applied the Enterprise 4.0 methodology, which analyses Industry 4.0 initiatives as follows:

• Digital transformation: Which technologies were used and how? (incremental or disruptive innovation)

• Internationalisation: What effect does the project have on the company’s global competitiveness? (return on sales, cost advantages, new business opportunities, effects on employment, site acquisition, ...)

• Entrepreneurship: What business challenges need to be overcome?

The members of E4.0 were all leading industrial firms that intensively discussed and worked together on Industry 4.0 topics (at management level and in detail at expert level) in a highly confidential setting. The project was highly focused on implementation and each company brought one of its major Industry 4.0/digital transformation projects to the table, in order to develop the topic with peers within the framework provided by the research project. Each of the companies was an industry leader in their sector, but none of them were direct competitors.

The participating companies were NOVOMATIC AG, BENE GmbH, buntmetall amstetten Ges.m.b.H., Doka Österreich GmbH, Franz Haas Waffelmaschinen GmbH, Georg Fischer Fittings GmbH, HOERBIGER Kompressortechnik Holding GmbH, RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH, RIC (Regionales Innovations Centrum) GmbH, TEST-FUCHS GmbH and Welser Profile GmbH.

The research partners were IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Vienna University of Economics and Business, TU Wien, St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, and University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt.

Enterprise 4.0 was a project from the mechatronics and plastics cluster initiatives by ecoplus, the Lower Austrian business agency.

Links to further information:

Enterprise 4.0 project folder: www.ecoplus.at/media/4604/folder-projekt-enterprise-vier-punkt-null.pdf

Digital transformation of companies and businesses goes beyond changes in the technological environment and application – it affects the very nature of a company. Surviving in a digitalised economy is an entrepreneurial challenge. There are new business models and value chains, new industrial networks as well as new digital products. Digital technologies change business processes and top- down and bottom-up organisational structures. Digital transformation is an entrepreneurial challenge.

The project aims to explore the success factors and conditions for the effective digital transformation of companies, and places a strong emphasis on the transformation from analogue to digital and digitalised business models.

The research focuses on established companies, including international firms, in the process of digitalising their business models. It seeks to identify the most transformative developments in their industries and why and how they are responding to these.

The project is co-financed by the Province of Lower Austria (Department K3 - Science and Research) and leading companies in the region.

The debate on social and environmental challenges is slowly but steadily changing the sustainability understanding of a growing number of hoteliers, with the focus increasingly shifting to the perception of innovation opportunities, away from sustainability as a tool for image enhancement. It is of particular importance that sustainability is perceived as an innovation opportunity, with the possibility of gaining a competitive advantage in order to stand out from the competition.

Suggestions on the extent to which sustainable innovations can be implemented in the holiday and city hospitality sector are given in particular by four best practice examples, which were investigated by the IMC Fachochschule Krems.

In all case studies, it is clear that corporate values ​​play a key role in sustainability and responsibility. The hotels have essential ideals and values ​​that they live with and which have often existed since the company's foundation or for several generations. They influence the assessment of new solutions and the future orientation of the activities of a hotel to a considerable extent.

Sustainability is seen as an opportunity rather than a risk in our study. Developing solutions for societal challenges does not necessarily mean that this will lead to a cost increase for companies, but the use of innovative technologies, processes and management approaches can lead to increased productivity and an expansion of markets. Companies can discover a variety of opportunities to take on social responsibility, while at the same time expanding their competitive edge.

The project is a result of the project "CSR and Innovation", funded by the COIN "Aufbau" (capacity building) funding line of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency.

The task was to develop innovative applications and solutions for SMEs and their environment with the help of students in different semesters and ideally different courses of study. These were used by the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to gain advantages in the context of their business operations in defined areas of application. For example: a better understanding among customers, acceptance of the company as an employer, aftercare in the medical-therapeutic area, virtual tour, virtual space, etc.

The task was also to communicate in distributed teams and communicate interdisciplinarily and to improve the products / demos by means of different methods (Agile Programming, Open Innovation, Design thinking, ..). In addition to online communication with distributed teams, the students also learned how to communicate with customers and their visions regarding projects that affect your processes. In addition, a good insight into the world of VR / AR was achieved and the possibilities for the use of such technologies were mediated.

The Project was funded by the Province of Lower Austria (Department K3 - Science and Research).

Can you teach and train entrepreneurship? Addressing this central question of Entrepreneurship Education Research was the goal of a research and evaluation project together with AWS Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH. By evaluating a one year program of entrepreneurship training (AWS First Program) and comparing it to the development of a controlgroup, we found significant training and learning effects regarding entrepreneurial know-how, as well as significant differences regarding entrepreneurial attitutes, motivation and attitude.

Europe Engage' seeks to embed the idea of the civic university through service-learning as a pedagogical approach within the participating universities, which enables students and universities to connect with society in order to maintain and develop democracy and healthy levels of social capital within the European context. Service-learning is a key approach in terms of incorporating a culture of civic and political literacy among the student population into higher education.

The ‘Europe Engage’ Project seeks to embed the concept and practice of the civic university through Service-Learning (S-L) and student engagement with community. The overall aim of ‘Europe Engage’ will be to promote Service-Learning as a pedagogical approach that embeds and develops civic engagement within higher education, students, staff and the wider community.

Europe Engage is a three-year project involving twelve institutions of higher education with experience and interest in this methodology.

Link to project card:

ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the EU.

This project, for Die Gärten Niederösterreichs (the gardens of Lower Austria association), is concerned with the economic, ecological and sociocultural impacts of parks and gardens (e.g. quality of life, image, qualitative regional effects) and will identify relevant indicators and measurement approaches to analyse these. In addition, proposals and recommendations for mutual (international) implementation will be developed. Based on the outcomes, a “toolbox” will be developed and recommendations derived.

CSR can play a major role in companies’ competitiveness. As a strategic and management approach, CSR can help businesses to exploit the opportunities for innovation presented by current and future social and environmental challenges. However, in practice CSR activities are still rarely – or only to a limited degree – linked with innovation management.

The project aimed to illustrate the effects of CSR on the various phases of the innovation cycle, and to develop suitable instruments and tools for SMEs and family businesses. This generated scientifically-based recommendations for ways in which SMEs and family businesses can optimise or implement innovation processes, on the basis of their CSR strategy and Goals.

The project was funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency under the fourth call for the “Aufbau” line of the COIN – Cooperation & Innovation programme (programme owners/sponsors: Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology; Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy).

The InRuTou project aimed to address the challenges of rural mountain communities and to facilitate sustainable tourism in rural mountainous areas, by creating and testing a set of tools and innovative models and by training existing and new local tourism operators, which have various degrees of experience as well as different professional and educational backgrounds. The project brought together partners from universities, research institutes and regional development organisations from six countries (Austria, Great Britain, Italy, Romania, Poland, Ukraine) and its activities were implemented in six pilot areas located in five countries and across three different mountain ranges: the Alps, the Apennines and the Carpathians.

The project was funded under the EU-Programme Lifelong Learning Programme.

SMEs and Enterprises, which perform their activities on the market usually have their core business processes well managed. Identified, documented, standardized, managed, automatized business processes ensure they stay competitive on the market. Nowadays, HEIs (higher education institutions) are faced with a shift from mass education, almost uniform age group (adolescents), employment status of students and finance sourcing to very different position. HEIs should adapt to study programme specialisation, broader target age group (lifelong learning), already employed students, which come from companies and various sources and combinations of financing (state, tuitions, projects, services, ...). Not only private HEIs, public HEIs are faced with mentioned changes also to improve HEI clients (=students, employees, partners) satisfaction and to remain competitive, HEI’s should manage their business processes similar to Enterprises and SMEs. Therefore, a business process management knowledge transfer should be initiated and maintained. Business Process Management (BPM) methodologies should be adapted to HEI specifics. Additionally, best practices of business processes from the enterprises and SMEs should be gathered, analyzed, modified and compiled into unified methodology for management of HEIs. Constant flow of BPM knowledge between HEIs and enterprises should also be maintained, to ensure exchange of field-based BPM experiences and theoretical knowledge.

The Project was funded under the EU Programme Lifelong Learning Programme.

Demand is growing for cultural tourism, a segment that stands out for its enormous variety of attractions on offer. However, very little research has been conducted in many areas of cultural tourism, including garden tourism. Parks, gardens and other landscaped, green open spaces are now seen as important cultural attractions for tourist destinations, and are increasingly being developed to cater for tourists. Such locations also provide leisure opportunities for the local population, and can make a contribution to an area’s cultural identity and sustainable regional development.

In the course of the three-year project, strategies and concepts were developed for preserving public and privately owned parks, gardens and other open spaces, and for their use in tourism. Feasibility studies were also conducted. A strategic management tool – the CultTour analysis tool – was developed to support parks and gardens managers in making their sites attractive to visitors and securing long-term income from tourism, while also taking account of environmental, economic and sociocultural sustainability.

The project was funded by the South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007-2013).

The dEUcert project promoted the European Certification and Quality Association (ECQA) and its Services. In the course of the project, a unified version of dissemination material was elaborated in English language and translated in 13 local languages for 60.000 individual persons. The partners focused their research activities on the interest of local markets about usage of ECQA services for existing and for new qualification schemes and developed a database for interested parties on local market and to integrate them at European level. On the basis of the research activities the ECQA portal was improved and the content was updated.

The project was funded by the EU-Programm Lifelong Learning.

The objective of this project is to build on the established EU Certificates Association (www.eu-certificates.org, network for innovation in education, and pool of European professions applying the same quality and certification criteria in EU countries based on the European Qualification framework, Aug 2005 – July 2007, Leonardo Network) and to integrate the results from a European research project which developed an integrated selective online learning platform system (EPI – Educational Partnership through ICT, 2003 – 2005, ) to build an online learning system for all the professions for training organisations from 14 European countries.

The project was funded under the EU-Programme Lifelong Learning Programme.