Success in numbers
Budget: EUR 166.6 million (2025)
Around 400 employees (2025) at the OeAD offices in Austria and abroad provide advice, funding and networking opportunities for individuals and institutions in the fields of education, science, research and culture.
The OeAD headquarters are in Vienna. In addition, there are five further offices in Austria: Bregenz, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz and Salzburg.
6 OeAD offices abroad: The OeAD has a network of six offices abroad in key regions of Austrian educational and scientific cooperation, namely in the EU's eastern neighbouring countries (two offices in Ukraine and one in the Republic of Moldova), the Western Balkans (regional offices in Tirana and Sarajevo) and China (Shanghai).
The OeAD handles more than 7,200 enquiries each year relating to studying, scholarships, cooperation and immigration law. OeAD is therefore Austria's competence centre for advising international higher education institutions, researchers and students.
The OeAD represents Austria at 28 public fairs. The OeAD provides advice on studying and conducting research in Austria as well as on cooperation opportunities and scholarships.
220 "Welt im Ohr" radio broadcasts: "Welt im Ohr" is the OeAD's radio programme series in cooperation with ORF Ö1 Campus and the largest German audio archive on development research and development policy.
2,300 examinations annually at OeAD International Testing Services: The OeAD test centre administers internationally recognised university admission tests and professional examinations for higher education institutions, using state-of-the-art biometric procedures.
Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps
As the national agency for Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps in Austria, the OeAD supports thousands of stays abroad every year. In the Erasmus+ education sector, up to 240,000 participants from Austria across the four sectors of higher education, school education, vocational education and training, and adult education are expected to take part in Erasmus+ mobility during the 2021–2027 programme period. In the Erasmus+ youth sector, around 13,000 people participate each year, meaning that by the end of the programme period approximately 91,000 participants will have benefited from the exchange opportunities. Austria is expected to receive 683 million euros in EU funding for Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps between 2021 and 2027.
In case of the centrals Erasmus+ “actions”, projects are submitted directly to Brussels and compete on a global scale. OeAD supports higher education institutions with an extensive range of advisory services. Between 2014 and 2020, more than 14,600 projects worldwide were submitted under Capacity Building in Higher Education, Jean Monnet, Erasmus Mundus, European Universities and Knowledge Alliances. Of the 225 projects submitted by Austrian coordinators, 35% were approved, resulting in a success rate well above the average (21.9%).
Through "Erasmus back to School", Erasmus students have been visiting their former schools since 2010 to share their experiences and inspire pupils to spend time abroad. Since the project was launched, more than 600 school visits have taken place, reaching 20,000 pupils. The project has since been extended to other educational sectors.
DiscoverEU gives 18-year-olds the opportunity to travel across Europe by rail for up to one month, either individually or in a group. In 2025, around 76,000 young people across Europe received a travel pass, including approximately 1,500 Austrians.
Internationalisation
Besides the Erasmus+, OeAD also offers scholarships and research funding for students and researchers from all over the world. Around 2,200 incoming scholarships are awarded each year. The most popular scholarships include the Ernst Mach Grant and CEEPUS for the Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European region, as well as subject-specific programmes such as the Franz Werfel Grant. The grants and research funding database at www.grants.at enables users to search specifically for funding opportunities.
Within the framework of the Ernst Mach Programme, for example, the OeAD can award more than 1,000 incoming scholarships. Whether from Argentina, Mexico, Vietnam, Ghana or Ukraine, Ernst Mach scholarship holders come to Austria from a total of 60 countries worldwide.
CEEPUS promotes academic mobility and cross-border cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe in the higher education area through study visits, student placements, intensive courses, student excursions and teaching staff mobility. In 2025, CEEPUS funded more than 960 incoming participants and more than 60 outgoing participants.
The OeAD Lectureship Programme is a mobility programme promoting the German language and teaching Austrian culture abroad. In 2025, around 90 lecturers were active at more than 70 locations in 26 countries around the world.
Language assistants are a valuable addition to foreign language teaching. In addition to the language itself, they bring knowledge of their countries and cultures into the classroom. In 2025, more than 360 foreign language assistants worked at around 600 Austrian schools, while more than 620 Austrian language assistants taught German abroad.
APPEAR is the higher education cooperation programme of Austrian Development Cooperation implemented by OeAD within the framework of International Partnerships Austria. Since 2010, it has supported high-quality cooperation between Austrian higher education institutions and higher education institutions in the priority countries and regions of Austrian Development Cooperation, including Master's and PhD scholarships. In 2025, 30 academic partnerships between Austrian higher education institutions and institutions in 13 partner countries were carried out.
Africa-UniNet: Africa-UniNet connects higher education and research institutions in African countries and Austria in order to establish and strengthen sustainable and equal scientific cooperation. With 20 approved research cooperation projects, the network now comprises 100 Africa-UniNet projects, including partnerships with institutions in 17 African countries.
Education and Society
In 2025, 160,000 pupils in Austria took part in cultural projects through OeAD's cultural education programmes for schools. Through the Kultur:Bildung (Culture:Education) initiative, the OeAD offers Austria's most comprehensive arts and cultural education programme for schools. In 2025, more than 3,500 arts and cultural projects were implemented through this programme.
Through the Children's and Youth Universities funding programme, 24 children's and youth universities were supported in 2025, including 12 with additional modules on holiday care with a scientific approach. A wide range of in-person and online activities enabled children and young people throughout Austria to gain easy access to the world of science. With a budget of more than 1.5 million euros, children's and youth universities were held in eight federal provinces in 2025.
More than 380 visits by volunteer Science Ambassadors took place in 2025 as part of OeAD's Young Science Programme. The ambassadors visited schools throughout Austria, either in person or virtually, speaking about their research fields and career paths. This gives pupils the opportunity to ask researchers questions directly and gain insights into their everyday work. The initiative forms part of the Federal Ministry's Trust in Science and Democracy strategy to strengthen trust in science and democracy.
Horizon project: In January 2025, the Horizon Europe-funded project RIECS-Concept was launched. Together with twelve partner organisations from eight countries, OeAD is designing a future European citizen science infrastructure. The focus is on participatory processes across all partner countries and involving a wide range of stakeholder groups.
Strengthening schools for a strong society: Since April 2022, workshops have been raising awareness among pupils of all school types and levels about the dangers of ideologies of inequality and strengthening their resilience to radicalisation. In 2025, more than 130,000 participants attended over 6,000 workshops. The programme is implemented by the OeAD on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection.
ERINNERN:AT is the OeAD's programme for teaching and learning about National Socialism and the Holocaust. It promotes the transfer of historical and methodological-didactic knowledge as well as reflection on its relevance today. Activities include meetings with contemporary witnesses, professional development opportunities and conferences. Teaching materials are also provided. Around 14,000 people working in education are reached through approximately 260 educational events.
With the support of a grant for memorial site visits, schools can take part in guided excursions to explore the history of the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps and their present-day memorial sites, as well as the Ebensee and Melk satellite camp memorials. Preparatory and follow-up teaching materials are also available.
Quality and Transparency in Education, Digital Competences, Digital Learning, eTwinning and Euroguidance
The Digital Learning Device Initiative is a key component of the Austrian Federal Government's 8-Point Plan for digital education. Pupils in Year 5 are provided with digital devices. The initiative creates the pedagogical and technical conditions for IT-supported teaching and ensures equal access to digital education for all pupils. Ninety-eight per cent of Austria's approximately 1,600 lower secondary schools participate in the initiative. In recent years (up to and including 2025), around 500,000 tablets and laptops have been distributed.
In 2025, the Media Literacy Award (MLA) competition was organised by the Federal Ministry of Education, OeAD and Ars Electronica. The MLA aims to showcase innovative and creative media projects and to promote media literacy in a targeted way. In 2025, OeAD presented the special prize Digital Learning.
eTwinning enables schools and kindergartens in 46 countries to connect and collaborate with European partners via the internet. It also provides professional development opportunities as well as ideas and materials for joint project work. Pupils can put their foreign language skills into practice and explore the use of digital media. Since 2005, more than one million teachers from almost 295,000 schools in 46 countries have taken part, making eTwinning one of the largest platforms for school cooperation in Europe.
The Euroguidance network, with national resource and information centres for lifelong guidance in more than 30 European countries, promotes the competence development of guidance practitioners. As the Austrian Euroguidance Centre, the OeAD acts as the interface between Austrian and European educational and career guidance. The OeAD also provides a graphic overview of the Austrian education system in 22 languages.
Since October 2023, the OeAD Office for Digital Competences has been implementing digitalisation workshops in municipalities throughout Austria. In 2025, around 2,600 workshops with approximately 25,000 participants took place.
In 2025, the OeAD launched Digital Überall PLUS. This initiative expands the existing programme and is specifically aimed at disadvantaged groups. In 2025, 450 new workshop series, innovative teaching methods and a new train-the-trainer course are intended to make digital participation even broader and more sustainable.
RQB – Quality Makes Schools 2.0: Around 5,700 schools in Austria have been working with QMS, the quality management system for schools, since the 2021/22 school year. During the 2024/25 school year, they completed the first three-year planning cycle of their initial School Development Plans (SDPs). With the new planning period beginning in 2025/26, QMS 2.0 was launched. Schools are now expected to establish, continuously develop and further improve their quality management processes.