The evening of 31 March 2025 was dedicated to innovation, as the presentation of the Styrian Innovation Prize focused entirely on new developments in the field of sustainability and digitalisation. JOANNEUM RESEARCH MATERIALS was also able to win in the category of ‘Sustainability: R&D institutions’ scoring with a coating method: atmospheric plasma coating makes it possible to apply conductive structures, water-repellent coatings or adhesive intermediate layers to wood or other bio-based materials in an economically scalable and ecologically sustainable way.
Award ceremony
Project leader Jürgen Lackner, our CEO Heinz Mayer, Institute director MATERIALS Paul Hartmann and research group leader Wolfgang Waldhauser accepted the trophy from Willibald Ehrenhöfer, the regional government representative for economic and research affairs, and Christoph Ludwig, managing director of the SFG.‘The degree of innovation of a research company is determined by its excellent employees, who work on current challenges facing the economy and society and are integrated into an agile network of business and science, as well as by a top research infrastructure. As an application-oriented research company, we are also able to offer targeted and customised solutions for the economy and industry at the location,’ says Heinz Mayer, Managing Director of JOANNEUM RESEARCH.
‘Innovation requires courage, careful preparation, stamina and persistence to successfully put ideas into practice. The outstanding winners of the Styria Innovation Prize are representative of the many innovative minds in our federal state and are setting standards in the forward-looking areas of digitalisation and sustainability,’ said Willibald Ehrenhöfer, Regional Minister for Economic Affairs and Research, who paid tribute to the achievements of the prizewinners: ‘Innovation opens up new business opportunities, increases domestic value creation and contributes to the creation and safeguarding of jobs in the long term.’
Styrian Innovation Award
The Austrian Institute of Industrial Research (IWI) used innovation criteria to draw up a shortlist of three finalists in each of the six categories from all the projects submitted. The winners were chosen by a jury of experts chaired by Infineon CEO Sabine Herlitschka.
The Styrian Innovation Prize is the official business prize awarded by the Austrian state of Styria. The focus is on the two main topics of ‘sustainability’ and ‘digitalisation’. The prize is awarded in the categories ‘micro and small enterprises’, ‘medium-sized and large enterprises’ and ‘institutions for applied research and development’ and is a requirement for participating in the Austrian State Prize for Innovation.
Für die Forschung zur atmosphärischen Plasmabeschichtung wurde das Team um Jürgen Lackner am 9. April auch mit dem Houskapreis, in recognition of their work on atmospheric plasma coating.
