Anniversary “60 Years OeAD – Agency for Education and Internationalisation”
The OeAD was founded on 13 November 1961 as an association called “Austrian Foreign Students Service” to provide foreign students in Austria with the basic necessities for successful studies. Converted into a federal limited liability company (GmbH) in 2009, the OeAD's portfolio has continuously expanded ever since. In addition to its focus on internationalisation the national education agendas at the OeAD have been expanded on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF). In 2021 the OeAD’s name was changed to “OeAD – Agency for Education and Internationalisation”, which takes this development into account. The OeAD is active in Austria, Europe and internationally in priority countries. With our programmes we advise, support and connect people and institutions in education, science, research and culture.
Heinz Faßmann, minister for education, science and research, congratulates the OeAD on its anniversary: “The OeAD is a reliable and highly competent partner for national, international and European scholarship and grant programmes in the field of education. Transnational cooperation in education and science is the key to competitiveness, systemic quality and innovation. For many people stays abroad are also the gateway by which they immerse themselves in other cultures, education systems and ways of working. Especially for a small country like Austria international exchange continues to be a decisive factor for education, science and research.”
The OeAD’s managing director, Jakob Calice, emphasises: “Shaping education and qualification is indispensable for our society, Austria’s positioning in education and science and our future. For 60 years the OeAD has supported and accompanied developments and changes. In 2021 we are celebrating our anniversary under the motto “Experience. Education. Future”. The motto is a guide for us because many of the programmes, strategies and activities that we implement aim to inspire people and institutions for innovations and expansion of skills and to anchor these goals in a sustainable way. Internationalisation and the quality of education have the highest priority.”
Advancing internationalisation
As an internationalisation agency the OeAD supports mobility and transnational cooperation in science, research and in all education sectors, from pre-school education to school education and vocational training, higher education and adult education, with a large number of scholarships and cooperations. In this way the OeAD supports global cooperation and presents Austria as an attractive place for education, higher education and science. Moreover, the OeAD is the national agency for the implementation of Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps and coordinates e.g. eTwinning and Europass in Austria.
Strengthening education and society
As a national education agency the OeAD supports numerous educational activities on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and implements federal priorities. In Austria the OeAD strengthens the interface between (school) education and society, for example by promoting cultural education, science communication and digital learning at schools. With different funding schemes the OeAD arouses curiosity and a willingness to innovate, encourages research and artistic creativity and supports the skilful use of new digital tools. Well-known programmes are Sparkling Science, cultural education with schools and apprentices as well as the provision of laptops and tablets for schools within the framework of the “Digital Learning” initiative. At the beginning of 2022 the association _erinnern.at_ will also be integrated into the OeAD and in the future the programme for teaching and learning about National Socialism and the Holocaust will be implemented by the OeAD.
Expanding quality and transparency
The OeAD consolidates and expands quality and transparency in education by developing quality assurance tools in education and by supporting processes such as the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), Ö-Cert and the TOEFL test.
60 years, 60 stories:https://oead.at/60Geschichten
The milestones in the OeAD’s history at a glance: www.oead.at/meilensteine
Some figures regarding the OeAD
315 employees at the OeAD locations in Austria and abroad advise, support and connect people and institutions in education, science, research and culture.
7 OeAD international cooperation offices: The OeAD has a network of seven international cooperation offices in priority regions of Austrian education and science cooperation, namely in the EU's neighbouring countries to the east (Russia, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova), the Western Balkan countries (regional offices Tirana and Sarajevo) and China (Shanghai).
The OeAD answers more than 5,000 enquiries per year on studies, scholarships, cooperation and the law relating to aliens. The OeAD is thus the Austrian competence centre for advising international higher education institutions, scientists and scholars and students.
At 12 international higher education fairs in 2021 the OeAD represented all Austrian higher education institutions. The OeAD advises on the topics of studying and research in Austria as well as on cooperation and scholarship possibilities.
200 “Welt im Ohr” radio broadcasts: “Welt im Ohr” (“World in your Ear”) is the OeAD radio series in cooperation with ORF Ö1 Campus and the largest audio archive on topics of development research and development policy in German language. For two years now there have also been Welt im Ohr programmes on other educational topics of the OeAD.
1,800 tests per year at OeAD International Testing Services: The OeAD Test Centre conducts globally recognised admission tests and professional examinations for higher education institutions, using state-of-the-art biometric procedures.
Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps:
As the national agency for Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps in Austria the OeAD supports thousands of stays abroad every year. Within Erasmus+ Education up to 240,000 participants from Austria are expected to go abroad with Erasmus+ during the programme period 2021-2027 in the four education areas – higher education, school education, vocational education and training and adult education. This is an average of around 34,300 people per year. Within Erasmus+ Youth it is 13,000 people per year, i.e. by the end of the programme period around 91,000 participants will have taken advantage of the exchange opportunities. From 2021 to 2027 Austria expects to receive 683 million euros for Erasmus+ and the ESC from European Union funds.
In the case of the central programmes of Erasmus+ projects are submitted directly to Brussels; there is worldwide competition. The OeAD supports the higher education institutions with an extensive range of advisory services. In the field of Capacity Building in Higher Education, Jean Monnet, Erasmus Mundus, European Universities and Knowledge Alliances more than 14,600 projects were submitted worldwide between 2014 and 2020. Of the 225 projects submitted by Austria as coordinator 35% were approved, which is a significantly higher percentage than the average (21.9%).
In the “Erasmus back to School” project Erasmus students have visited their former schools for 10 years, talking about their experiences and arousing an interest for a stay abroad in the pupils. Since the start of the project more than 600 school visits have taken place and 18,000 pupils have been reached. Now the project has been extended to other areas of education.
Within the framework of the global expansion of the Erasmus+ programme 1,660 mobility activities of students and higher education staff between Austria and 65 countries on all continents were funded in 2020. Erasmus+ international promotes networking of universities worldwide and in all disciplines.
Internationalisation:
Besides Erasmus+ the OeAD also offers scholarships and research funding for students and researchers from all over the world. 1,700 incoming scholarships were awarded in 2019. The most popular scholarships are the Ernst Mach Scholarship, and CEEPUS for the region of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, as well as subject-specific programmes such as the Franz Werfel Scholarship or the Richard Plaschka Scholarship. In the database for scholarships and research grants www.grants.at you can systematically search for funding possibilities.
Within the framework of the Ernst Mach Programme, for example, the OeAD was able to award a total of 283 incoming scholarships in 2020. Whether it is from Argentina, Mexico, Vietnam, Ghana or Slovakia – the Ernst Mach scholarship holders came to Austria from a total of 54 countries worldwide.
Despite corona-related restrictions 54 Marietta Blau fellows were able to optimise their dissertations in 2020 by means of longer scientific stays abroad and to gain experience in an international research environment.
The OeAD Lectureship Programme is a mobility programme for the promotion of the German language and the teaching of Austrian culture abroad. More than 100 lecturers work at around 100 locations in 31 countries around the globe.
Language assistants are a valuable addition to foreign language teaching.In addition to the language they also bring knowledge about the country and its people into the classroom. 420 foreign language assistants do this at Austrian schools and 175 language assistants from Austria teach German abroad. At around 1,000 schools per year the language assistant programme supports foreign language teaching.
Since 2009 APPEAR – the Austrian Partnership Programme in Higher Education and Research for Development – has supported 189 scholarship holders from the partner countries of the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC).
56 higher education institutions in Africa-Uninet: The network currently consists of 35 universities in 15 African countries and 21 higher education institutions in Austria.
Education and society:
Every year 155,000 pupils in Austria are involved in cultural projects through OeAD offers for “cultural education with schools”.
Since the beginning of the project series (1989) 26,318 apprentices from 2,340 companies and 158 vocational schools have participated in cultural education projects.
With the OeAD's Young Science programme 240 Young Science ambassadors visit schools throughout Austria on a voluntary basis and talk about their fields of research and their professional careers. This gives the pupils an opportunity to ask researchers questions directly and gain insights into their daily work.
299 Sparkling Science projects: In the science education projects 4,200 researchers worked side by side with 101,000 young people and 2,600 teachers on current research questions between 2007 and 2019. In September 2021 the science education project, which is unique in Europe, started its second phase.
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