TU Wien’s path to strategic, cross-cutting partnerships
A warm welcome to our Accelerator Member, TU Wien. Founded in 1815, the university has a strong research portfolio, with 32 active ERC grants, and two recent Nobel Prize winning physicists who conducted crucial parts of their work in Vienna.
The university focuses on five research areas: computational science and engineering, quantum physics and quantum technologies, materials and matters, information and communication technologies and energy and environment, and aims to build on its internationally renowned strengths through partnerships.
I sat down with Michael Kaiser, Director of Donor Relations and Engagement Services, to discuss TU Wien’s new engagement strategy, its first strategic industry partnership, and the university’s efforts to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and build a culture of openness within and beyond the university.
Learning from peers in the UIIN community
Michael attended the UIIN Conference in 2024, where he met inspiring people from around the world who were facing similar challenges to those at TU Wien. Given the university’s ambition to build strategic partnerships across research, innovation, and the talent pipeline, joining UIIN offered a valuable opportunity to grow a network, exchange ideas, and benchmark with peers working on similar initiatives. Michael told us that he found the 2025 UIIN Nordic Forum particularly valuable as he was able to connect with peers who have similar mindsets and organisational structures.
Putting interdisciplinarity and openness at the core
TU Wien recently released a new university-wide strategy[1]. Now positioning itself as ‘’The creative urban tech university. Unlimited’’, it strives to put people, creativity and interdisciplinary exchange at the centre of its activities.
We position ourselves now and in the future as TU Wien – The Creative Urban Tech University. Unlimited.
Michael Kaiser, Director of Donor Relations and Engagement Services at TU Wien
The strategy outlines eight strategic goals aimed at opening the university to greater collaboration with its local ecosystem and beyond:
- Attractive and performance-enhancing environment
- Scientific leadership and international visibility
- Unity of teaching and research
- Digital transformation
- Creativity and innovation culture
- Sustainability
- Leading role in knowledge exchange and innovation
- Community and belonging
Goal number seven focuses on positioning TU Wien as a leading institution for the exchange of knowledge, methods, and technologies. The university aims to make its systems as open as possible to external partners, whether corporates, research institutes, or public institutions.
Interdisciplinarity has taken on new importance at TU Wien. For over 200 years, collaboration with industry largely occurred on a bilateral basis — between individual companies and specific institutes or research groups. Now, the university is shifting towards a more strategic collaborative approach, where it jointly defines long-term research priorities with its partners — including in multi-stakeholder settings — over a 5-to-10-year horizon. For any strategic partnership to succeed, interdisciplinary collaboration is no longer optional; it is essential.
While the university is still in the early stages of its strategic partnership journey, it is strongly committed to seeing it through. Encouragingly, the response from industry has been overwhelmingly positive — a reflection of TU Wien’s genuine openness and readiness for change. The university isn’t just talking about transformation; it’s actively making it happen. And this commitment is visible at all levels — from leadership to administrative and service units — with the entire institution aligned and moving in the same direction.
The strategy provides the university with clarity and direction for the first time. It’s written down, its being implemented, and it’s setting a new direction for the university
Michael Kaiser, Director of Donor Relations and Engagement Services at TU Wien
Forging a strategic alliance with industry: The TU Wien–Strabag partnership
TU Wien signed their first strategic partnership agreement in Autumn 2024, with Strabag, one of the biggest construction companies in Austria. As part of the setup process, both partners are engaging in a structured co-creation process, including scouting and framing exercises to identify priority areas, namely research, innovation and talent pipeline. This process will culminate in a two-day strategy workshop, bringing together around 20 representatives from each side to define joint research fields for the next three, five and seven years. The outcomes of this dialogue will serve as a roadmap for future collaboration, guiding interdisciplinary research teams made up of university researchers and company staff. While still in its early stages, the partnership is making steady progress, with added benefits already emerging in areas such as talent acquisition and employer branding.
Building alignment for meaningful collaboration
One of the key challenges that TU Wien face in developing their engagement is ensuring that everyone speaks the same language. As they work on the engagement strategy – from the rectorate to the deans and senior management – each group tends to use different terminology, making it difficult to align perspectives. Reaching a shared understanding and building consensus is a slow and ongoing process. At the same time, it also remains difficult to clearly communicate to external partners what the university can offer in a partnership—and what they can expect in return.
Another challenge is facilitating interdisciplinary engagement, as the faculties operate with a high degree of autonomy and pursue their own goals. To address this, TU Wien are currently developing incentive mechanisms to encourage cross-faculty collaboration.
The strategy is working towards a significant change in the university’s organisational culture, and it takes a lot of time and effort to embed this change across the institution. To support this process, TU Wien has set up a ‘Stakeholder Relations Steering Group’. The group brings together representatives from across the university—finance, donor relations and partnerships, research coordination, innovation, career services, ethics, the international office, and more. Meeting quarterly, the group discusses emerging opportunities for collaboration and assesses whether potential partners are a strategic and cultural fit for the university.
References
[1] One Mission – One Vision: The strategy of TU Wien.
Looking to strengthen your university’s industry partnerships?
Discover how to move beyond ad hoc collaboration and build long-term, strategic alliances in our brief Building Strategic and Sustainable University–Industry Partnerships. Drawing on insights from over 15 UIIN consulting projects, this piece offers practical guidance to help university leaders create more resilient, impactful, and future-ready partnerships.
Tasha Day (author) is a Project Officer at UIIN, where she undertakes research activities and creates content on a wide variety of topics including entrepreneurship education, sustainability and research valorisation.
