Facts and figures

Budget: 137 million Euros (2023)

Approximately 370 members of staff (2024) at the OeAD locations in Austria and abroad advise, support and connect people and institutions in education, science, research and culture.

The OeAD’s headquarters is in Vienna. There are also 5 other locations: Bregenz, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz and Salzburg.

6 OeAD international cooperation offices: The OeAD has a network of six international cooperation offices in priority regions of Austrian education and science cooperation, namely in the EU's neighbouring countries to the east (2 in Ukraine; Republic of Moldova), the Western Balkan countries (regional offices Tirana and Sarajevo) and China (Shanghai).

The OeAD answers more than 7,600 enquiries per year regarding studies, scholarships, cooperation and the law relating to aliens. This makes the OeAD the Austrian competence centre for advising international higher education institutions, scientists and scholars and students.

The OeAD represents Austria at 18 international higher education fairs. The OeAD provides advice on studying and research in Austria as well as on cooperation and scholarship possibilities.

200 “Welt im Ohr” radio broadcasts: “Welt im Ohr” (“World in your Ear”) is the OeAD's radio programme series in cooperation with ORF Ö1 Campus and the largest audio archive on topics of development research and development policy in German language.

1,800 tests per year at OeAD International Testing Services: The OeAD test centre conducts globally recognised admission tests and professional examinations for higher education institutions, using state-of-the-art biometric procedures.

Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps:

As the national agency for Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps in Austria the OeAD funds thousands of stays abroad every year. Within Erasmus+ Education up to 240,000 participants from Austria are expected to go abroad with Erasmus+ during the programme period 2021-2027 in the four education sectors – higher education, school education, vocational education and training and adult education. Within Erasmus+ Youth it is 13,000 people per year, i.e. by the end of the programme period around 91,000 participants will have taken advantage of the exchange opportunities. Austria is expected to receive 683 million euros from European Union funds for Erasmus+ and the ESC from 2021 to 2027.

In the case of the central Erasmus+ "actions" projects are submitted directly to Brussels; there is worldwide competition. The OeAD supports the higher education institutions with an extensive range of advisory services. In the field of Capacity Building in Higher Education, Jean Monnet, Erasmus Mundus, European Universities and Knowledge Alliances more than 14,600 projects were submitted worldwide between 2014 and 2020. Of the 225 projects submitted by Austria as coordinator 35% were approved, which is a significantly higher percentage than the average (21.9%).

With “Erasmus back to School” Erasmus students have visited their former schools since 2010, talked about their experiences and aroused an interest for a stay abroad in the pupils. Since the start of the project more than 600 school visits have taken place and 18,000 pupils have been reached. The project has since been extended to other areas of education.

DiscoverEU offers young people aged 18 the opportunity to spend a maximum of one month travelling around Europe by train as individuals or in groups.

Internationalisation:

Besides Erasmus+ the OeAD also offers scholarships and research funding for students and researchers from all over the world. 2,200 incoming scholarships are awarded every year. The most popular scholarships are the Ernst Mach Scholarship, and CEEPUS for the region of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, as well as subject-specific programmes such as the Franz Werfel Scholarship. In the database for scholarships and research grants www.grants.at you can systematically search for funding possibilities.

Within the framework of the Ernst Mach Programme, for example, the OeAD can award more than 1,100 incoming scholarships. Whether it is from Argentina, Mexico, Vietnam, Ghana or Ukraine – Ernst Mach scholarship holders came to Austria from a total of 53 countries worldwide.

CEEPUS funds academic mobility and transnational cooperation in higher education with Central and Eastern Europe by means of study visits, student internships, intensive courses, student excursions and teaching staff mobility. In 2022 CEEPUS supported more than 620 incoming persons and more than 150 outgoing persons.

Despite corona-related restrictions 54 Marietta Blau fellows were able to optimise their dissertations in 2020 by means of longer scientific stays abroad and to gain experience in an international research environment.

The OeAD Lectureship Programme is a mobility programme to promote the German language and Austrian culture abroad. Around 110 lecturers worked at more than 90 locations in 31 countries around the globe in December 2023.

Language assistants are a valuable addition to foreign language teaching. In addition to the language they also bring knowledge about the country and its people into the classroom. More than 360 foreign language assistants did this at more than 500 Austrian schools in 2022 and more than 160 language assistants from Austria teach German abroad.

APPEAR is the Austrian Development Cooperation’s higher education cooperation programme. Since 2010 it has supported high-quality cooperation between Austrian higher education institutions and higher education institutions in the Austrian Development Cooperation’s priority countries and regions and also master's and PhD scholarships. APPEAR has funded 51 academic partnerships over the past twelve years.

Africa-Uninet: The network currently consists of 69 higher education institutions and research institutes in 17 African countries and Austria – 43 in Africa and 26 higher education institutions in Austria.

Education and society:

Every year 152,000 pupils in Austria are involved in cultural projects through OeAD offers for “cultural education with schools”. With the Kultur:Bildung (Culture:Education) initiative the OeAD offers the most comprehensive cultural education project with schools all over Austria.

Since the start of the project series on cultural education with apprentices (1989) almost 30,000 apprentices from 2,400 companies and 158 vocational schools have been involved in cultural education projects.

The funding programme "Children's and Youth Universities" supported 20 children's and youth universities in 2022, 14 of which included "holiday care with a scientific approach" extension modules. Children and young people all over Austria were given a low-threshold introduction to the world of science through a broad range of face-to-face and online offers. Around 95,000 children took part in face-to-face, online or hybrid programmes in 2022.

More than 430 science ambassadors visit schools all over Austria on a voluntary basis, on-site or virtually, with the OeAD's Young Science programme and talk about their fields of research and their professional careers. This gives the pupils an opportunity to ask researchers questions directly and gain insights into their daily work. The initiative is part of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF)'s "Trust in Science and Democracy" strategy to strengthen trust in science and democracy.

The research programme Sparkling Science 2.0 with a total budget of 11.5 million euros (1st call) supports citizen science research projects in all scientific disciplines. Research institutions and educational institutions and, as far as possible, civil society work together in these projects. Around 74,000 people are expected to be reached.

"Extremism Prevention at Schools" aims to raise awareness of extremism among pupils throughout Austria and strengthen their resilience to radicalisation. The OeAD offers numerous workshops on various topics within the framework of this Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) initiative. Topics include e.g. conflict resolution, democratic debate culture, participation, radicalisation processes, conspiracy theories, discrimination, values and civil courage. In 2023 2,500 workshops were held with around 50,000 pupils.

ERINNERN:AT is the OeAD programme for teaching and learning about National Socialism and the holocaust. It promotes the transfer of historical and methodological and didactic knowledge as well as reflection on its significance for the present. Talks with survivors and witnesses of national socialism and the holocaust as well as training courses and conferences are organised. Teaching materials are also made available. Around 15,000 teachers are reached at around 200 educational events.

With the help of a grant for visits to memorial sites pupils can learn about the history of the concentration camps and now concentration camp memorials Mauthausen and Gusen as well as their satellite camp memorials Ebensee and Melk within the framework of guided excursions. Materials for preparation and follow-up are also available.

Digital skills, digital learning, eTwinning and Euroguidance:

The digital learning device initiative is a central component of the Austrian federal government's 8-point plan for digital teaching. Pupils of the 5th grade are equipped with digital devices. The initiative creates the pedagogical and technical conditions for IT-supported teaching and gives pupils access to digital education at equal conditions. 95 per cent of Austria's 1,650 lower secondary schools are taking part in this initiative with 315,000 pupils.

eTwinning offers schools and kindergartens in 44 countries the opportunity to connect and collaborate with European partners via the internet. Moreover, eTwinning offers further education possibilities as well as suggestions and materials for joint project work. Pupils can practise their foreign language skills and try out the use of digital media. Every year there are around 100 virtual eTwinning projects and more than 250 Austrian teachers take part in professional development courses each year.

The Euroguidance network with national resource and information centres for education and career guidance in more than 30 countries in Europe promotes the skills development of guidance practitioners. The OeAD as Euroguidance Centre Austria is the interface between Austrian and European education and career guidance. The OeAD provides a chart of the Austrian education system in 22 languages.

The OeAD Digital Skills Office has implemented digitisation workshops in all Austrian municipalities since October 2023. 860 workshops have already taken place.