Austria is doing everything in its power to keep abreast of comparable industrial nations in research and development. In 1998, expenditure on R&D totalled some 40.6 billion Schillings (1.56% of the gross domestic product).

Austria's research policy distinguishes between science-oriented and business-oriented research. Science-oriented research takes place under the auspices of universities and specialised colleges, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Institutes run by the Ludwig Boltzmann Society, the Higher Technical Training Institutes and other state and private-sector research facilities. Business-oriented research is carried out by Austrian companies and private and state research institutes for whole economic sectors.

The focus of Austria's international scientific and technological research co-operation is on the EU, most notably the Specific Programmes of Action Line I of the 4th Outline Programme for Research and Technology Development (1994-98) and Action Lines II to IV (co-operation with third countries, dissemination and utilisation of results, training and mobility of scientists) but also COST (Coopération européenne dans le domaine de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique) and EURECA (European Research Co-ordination Agency).

Austria also participates in the activities of the Council of Europe, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), OECD and UNESCO.

Austria has eighteen universities, including the University of Vienna, which was founded in 1365. In the 1997/98 academic year there were 217,200 students fully enrolled at Austria's universities and art colleges.

Sixteen Austrians have been awarded the Nobel Prize. They include Julius Wagner-Jauregg in 1927 (therapy of paralysis), Wolfgang Pauli in 1945 (the "Pauli Principle" in quantum theory), Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz in 1973 (behavioural science), and Friedrich A. von Hayek in 1974 (economics).