Austria – FFG COMET : Excellent collaborative research for future-oriented innovations. Collaborations between academia and industry.

In COMET Projects, high-quality research is carried out through collaboration between academia and industry. The aim is to do research towards exploitable products, processes, and services that have strong development potential and can reach market maturity in the medium term.

Who can be funded?
Consortia consisting of at least one scientific institution (universities, universities of applied sciences, research organizations) and at least three mutually independent companies (companies from Austria and abroad) are eligible to apply.

Eligible for funding:
– Companies of any legal form
– Research and knowledge dissemination institutions
– Universities
– Universities of applied sciences
– Non-university research institutions
– Technology transfer institutions, innovation agents and other research-orientated organisations
– Other non-commercial institutions
– Non-science-orientated associations
– Local authorities and autonomous bodies

What can be funded?
– Funding is provided for a cooperative research program that creates clear added value for both industry and research.
COMET Projects address consortia that are seeking to enter the COMET programme and aim to build close partnerships between academia and industry.
– The call is thematically open within the key technologies defined in the industry strategy. Projects must primarily be assigned to one key technology, but may also address several key technologies in the project content. The key technology „chips, electronic components and systems“ is excluded from the current call.
– Projects that focus on other key technologies and in which electronic components are merely enabling technologies or application components are eligible for funding.

Why should you submit a COMET Project?
1. Enable excellent cooperative research to reach market maturity
2. Thematically open research associated with key technologies
3. Flexibility to adapt the research program and consortium
4. Long-term planning perspective: 3–4 years duration, with the possibility of follow-up projects and development into a COMET Centre
5. Impact and exploitation are ensured through close cooperation with companies
6. Sustainable competence building and knowledge generation through publications, PhD theses, and Master’s theses

What can be funded?
Funding is provided for a cooperative research program that creates clear added value for both industry and research.
COMET Projects address consortia that are seeking to enter the COMET programme and aim to build close partnerships between academia and industry.
The call is thematically open within the key technologies defined in the industry strategy. Projects must primarily be assigned to one key technology, but may also address several key technologies in the project content. The key technology „chips, electronic components and systems“ is excluded from the current call.
Projects that focus on other key technologies and in which electronic components are merely enabling technologies or application components are eligible for funding.
Further details can be found in the COMET Projects 2026 Call Guidelines and in the industry strategy 2035.

Why should you submit a COMET Project?
1. Enable excellent cooperative research to reach market maturity
2. Thematically open research associated with key technologies
3. Flexibility to adapt the research program and consortium
4. Long-term planning perspective: 3–4 years duration, with the possibility of follow-up projects and development into a COMET Centre
5. Impact and exploitation are ensured through close cooperation with companies
6. Sustainable competence building and knowledge generation through publications, PhD theses, and Master’s theses

What is the amount of funding?
Financing:
maximum 45 % public funding
maximum federal funding: 0.45 m EUR per year
maximum provincial funding: 0.225 m EUR per year
minimum 45 % share of participating companies
The remaining funding has to be secured.