The Art of Collaboration

Cooperation is what makes us humans successful – and when researchers pool their expertise, the potential for groundbreaking findings is increased. In nine Clusters of Excellence, Austria’s largest research networks, hundreds of researchers are working together to break new ground in basic research and generate knowledge for the innovations of tomorrow.

Leading minds in Austrian research as well as national and international stakeholders met at the Think Beyond Summit to discuss the future of cooperative cutting-edge research – and find out what opportunities lie ahead.

• Eva-Maria Holzleitner (Federal Minister for Women, Science and Research)
• Christof Gattringer (FWF President)
• Ursula Jakubek (FWF Vice-President)
• Moderator: Birgit Dalheimer (science journalist, ORF Radio Ö1)

Cutting-edge research thrives on cooperation – between research groups, between locations, between scientific fields, but also between society, business, and industry. In Austria and Germany, Clusters of Excellence and research networks are creating new forms of cooperation on a large scale, combining basic research, innovation, and start-up activities.

How does cooperation in cutting-edge research work and what factors make a Cluster of Excellence successful? How can synergies between research, business, industry, and society be best utilized to strengthen knowledge transfer and innovation?

Keynotes:

• Axel A. Brakhage (Vice-President of the German Research Foundation (DFG); Scientific Director, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) Jena, Founding spokesman of the DFG Cluster of Excellence “Balance of the Microverse”)
• Dorothea Ringe (Director Entrepreneurship, Joachim Herz Foundation, Hamburg)
• Christof Gattringer (FWF President)

Following the keynotes, the speakers discussed the opportunities and challenges of cooperative cutting-edge research. 

Austria’s Clusters of Excellence are advancing cooperative basic research on a wide range of promising key topics: Energy storage, quantum technologies, global health, the future of knowledge, brain research, Eurasian cultural heritage, microbiome research, healthy aging, artificial intelligence, and materials research. Where is this research leading? What new opportunities does this form of collaboration offer researchers? In which areas are new findings already emerging?

Statements and inputs came from members of the Clusters of Excellence, and Federal Minister Eva-Maria Holzleitner, Ursula Jakubek, and Christof Gattringer gave an initial status report.

The Think Beyond Summit gave participants the opportunity to get to know the Clusters of Excellence researchers in person, enter into conversation, and exchange ideas with various stakeholders from the scientific community – in keeping with the motto, “Science connects.”

The Think Beyond Summit brings together experts and decision-makers from science, business, research policy and other areas of society to discuss the future of science from the perspective of basic research. The event offers participants the opportunity to join stakeholders and multipliers to discuss national and international perspectives, to exchange ideas and experiences, and to find answers to Austria’s key challenges as a location for knowledge and research.

Did you miss the first three Summits? You can read all about them online here:

• Think Beyond Summit 2026 and photo gallery
• Think Beyond Summit 2025
• Think Beyond Summit 2024