The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is Austria’s largest non-university research organisation with around 1300 employees working in eight centers. It is specialized in the key infrastructure issues of the future.
The Center for Innovation Systems & Policy (ISP) bundles the social, economic and political science expertise of AIT in relation to innovation and new technology. It deals with current and future requirements for research and innovation systems, as well as with the options available to research, technology and innovation policy (RTI policy) and industry. The multi-disciplinary staff has strong quantitative and qualitative methods skills, particularly for investigating emerging patterns in socio-technological developments with the help of forward-looking and participatory methods to identify future challenges and co-create adaptive solutions for government policy and corporate strategy.
The Center for Innovation Systems & Policy has long-standing experience in RTI policy research and policy advice, covering the entire policy cycle from Foresight and instrument design to implementation monitoring and evaluation. It concentrates on the development of novel approaches in policy-oriented research for Grand Societal Challenges, e.g. in the health sector, in energy, in security, in mobility, in urban development etc., building on a broad range of systems and future research concepts.
The Center was involved in several major EU Foresight projects during the last 20 years such as EFP – European Foresight Platform; PHS Personalised Health Systems Foresight; FRESHER – FoResight and Modelling for European HEalth Policy and Regulation.
The Center for Health & Bioresources comprises several units who work in a broad area of research fields related to health and well-being.
The interdisciplinary Digital Health Information Systems (HIS) research team has many years of experience with eHealth infrastructures and health care IT systems as well as systems that provide direct links to patients to personalise the treatment of chronic diseases (more than 1.000.000 patient monitoring days so far), including some health economic aspects.
The Molecular Diagnostics (HMD) unit combines the expertise of various groups involved in a variety of diverse but complementing research fields like biomarker discovery and validation, assay development, bioinformatics, biosensor development, and systems integration for point-of-care diagnostics. A strong focus is on non-invasive and minimally invasive diagnostics, e.g. for screening, early diagnosis, companion diagnostics, and monitoring of chronic diseases. The group strives to find highly sensitive and highly specific biomarkers that enable disease risk prediction, early and precise diagnosis, patient stratification, disease prognosis, and prediction of therapy response. Together with the focus on point-of-care platforms, this is a main pillar of truly personalised and patient-oriented medicine.
Further information: www.ait.ac.at
Project members:
Susanne Giesecke is a political scientist by training. She works on qualitative innovation research and Grand Challenges, technology assessment; evaluation of R&D programmes as well as foresight. She has been engaged in several research projects and foresights as well as foresight networks, and the future of Health and Health Policy. Latest projects of hers have dealt the international Foresight Community in Europe and beyond (network and training projects EFP (“European Foresight Platform”) and IFA (“International Foresight Academy”) the governance of converging technologies in the health sector (project “Personal Health System Foresight”) and the identification of Grand Challenges for the European Research Area (project ”Forward Visions for the European Research Area). Next to research projects, Susanne’s work is dedicated to a broad participatory approach, involving stakeholders and other experts into the problem solving of future societal challenges. Among ongoing projects, she has been working are the ‘Foresight and Modelling for European Health Policy and Regulation’ (FRESHER); and for the identification of innovation funding priorities for the next EC framework programme beyond 2017 (BOHEMIA). She is also presently engaged in the ERA Learn2020 project training professionals in the skills of Foresight. Susanne is the coordinator of the project.
Contact: Susanne.Giesecke (at) ait.ac.at
Manuela Kienegger is a graduate from Vienna University, where she received a PhD in biology. Since joining AIT in 2009 she has been working for the Centers of Health & Bioresources and Innovation Systems & Policy, where she has been coordinating and participating in various national and EU research projects concerned with technology management, ranging from innovation and research policy making to bibliometric analysis of research and health care-related projects. She is a member of the Austrian Platform for Personalised Medicine.
Contact: Manuela.Kienegger (at) ait.ac.at
Andreas Weinhäusel has 23 years’ experience in molecular diagnostics, working in both a human diagnostics lab and in research. He is a biotechnologist by profession and has a post-doctoral graduation as “Specialist in Human Genetics”. Working from 1995-2004 at the Children’s Cancer Research Institute, Vienna, he is experienced in human molecular genetic diagnostics and specialized on diagnostic-testing of syndromal and hereditary neoplastic diseases. Since 2004 at AIT, he leads the biomarker development group. In addition, he is also an associate professor for molecular biology at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna. At AIT his research is focused on epigenetics and immunomics. His group is conducting applied research for improving human molecular diagnostics, focused on minimal invasive diagnostics to develop diagnostic and predictive biomarkers for PPP medical applications. The group has a long-lasting expertise in clinical projects and acts as a technology provider. Current project work is conducted on early diagnostics and patient stratification for cancerous, inflammatory and cardio-vascular disease. Andreas has authored more than 90 scientific papers and has filed 8 patents for molecular diagnostics and biomarkers.
Contact: Andreas.Weinhaeusel (at) ait.ac.at
Günter Schreier received the doctoral and Habilitation degrees in electrical engineering/biomedical informatics from the Graz University of Technology and is currently a senior scientist and thematic coordinator for “Predictive Health care Information Systems” with the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH. He serves as the President of the Austrian Society of Biomedical Engineering and chairs the working group “Medical Informatics and eHealth” of the Austrian Computer Society. Günter has authored or co-authored more than 300 scientific publications and presentations, teaches at three Universities and is the founder and president of the annual scientific eHealth conference in Vienna. He serves as an advisor to the Austrian Ministry of Health and the EC, DG Sante. His areas of expertise and research interests are in The Internet of Things for personalised health, telehealth and predictive analytics from Big Health care Data.
Contact: Guenter.Schreier (at) ait.ac.at