Director General of the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF) Theodoros Loukaidis recently met with Henrietta Egerth, who leads Austria’s national R&D funding agency, FFG. According to an announcement, the meeting took place on September 5, at the FFG offices in Viena, and sought to deepen the ties between the two agencies, while exploring future avenues of collaboration. Various other executives from both organisations were also in attendance.

The announcement mentioned that both institutions presented their research, development and innovation ecosystems, as well as their respective performances in these fields, both nationally and internationally during the meeting. This was followed by a discussion on methods for designing and maximising the impact of national funding programmes. Additionally, there was an exchange of views on specific actions implemented by the two organisations to support each country’s participation in the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon Europe.

Loukaidis and a delegation from the RIF also met with the head of the European and International Programmes Department of the FFG, Margit Noll, along with other senior staff of the organisation. Among other things, they discussed common challenges and possible actions to strengthen cooperation between Cypriot and Austrian institutions, with a view to jointly submitting proposals to Horizon Europe. “We are very keen to strengthen our collaboration both in terms of learning from each other but also to facilitate and support more collaborations between our respective ecosystems especially in Horizon Europe,” Loukaidis said in a statement.

For her part, FFG Managing Director Henrietta Egerth said that the “RIF has been a long-standing partner of FFG and numerous Austrian R&I stakeholders, demonstrating impressive growth over the past few years”. “We look forward to continuing our exchange and strengthening the ties between our national ecosystems,” she added. “There is much we can learn from one another to enhance our services and provide stronger support to our R&I communities,” Egerth concluded.