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The AIT Poster Award of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology specifically promotes entrepreneurial thinking and innovative spirit among young researchers - and thus creates the basis for future spin-offs and technology-driven start-ups. The focus is on research projects with clear application potential and prospects for commercial utilisation.
"Innovative research must have a real impact and enable scalable business models. This is exactly what we are promoting with the Poster Award," emphasises Alexander Svejkovsky, Managing Director of the AIT. "Our aim is to encourage young talents to further develop their ideas directly in the context of the market, application and social benefit and to think about the possibility of a successful spin-off at an early stage."
Eleven diploma students, doctoral candidates and junior scientists from six AIT centres presented pioneering projects with application potential in digitalisation, sustainability, mobility and life sciences at the Poster Award 2025. The best works were honoured at an award ceremony on 27 May 2025.
The long-standing collaboration with the Lower Austrian start-up incubator accent and the venture capital fund tecnet equity contributes entrepreneurial expertise and promotes the transfer of research into marketable applications.
"Research results are the basis for future innovations and economic value creation. We support AIT scientists in developing suitable commercialisation strategies and identifying suitable financing at an early stage. This knowledge of commercial implementation should be passed on to young talents as early as possible," emphasises Doris Agneter, Managing Director of the venture capital fund tecnet equity
"Excellent research only realises its full potential when it is communicated in an understandable and targeted manner. As a high-tech incubator, accent helps to transform innovative technologies into viable business models - and thus paves the way from research to successful start-ups," adds Michael Moll, Managing Director of accent Inkubator GmbH.
"As a leading research institution, we are consciously taking an active role in shaping a strong Austrian innovation ecosystem," explains Svejkovsky. "The Poster Award is an important building block for successfully transferring technological innovations from research into commercial practice."
First place: Revolutionary approach to reducing iridium in PEM electrolysers
This year's first place in the AIT Poster Awards goes to Martin Krammer from the Centre for Energy for his outstanding contribution to sustainable hydrogen production. In his award-winning poster, he presents a groundbreaking solution to one of the key challenges of proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis: its dependence on expensive and rare platinum metals – especially iridium.
Using an innovative process, Martin has succeeded in drastically reducing PGM consumption by up to a factor of 10 – an important step towards cost reduction and resource optimisation. In addition, the manufacturing process is scalable and capable of producing ultra-thin, nanostructured catalyst layers. Despite the significantly lower material consumption, these layers impress with their high efficiency and stability.
This groundbreaking work lays the foundation for scalable, more cost-effective and environmentally friendly PEM electrolysis technology – while also opening up new applications in related fields such as fuel cell technology.
Second place: Miniaturised quantum detector for quantum communication
Emmily Zaiser from the Centre for Digital Safety & Security took second place with a compact, cost-effective and powerful balanced homodyne detector. Clever use of standard components makes this new detector ideal for integrated systems in quantum communication, quantum computing and random number generation and enables broad technological scaling.
Third place: Channel emulator improves reliability of V2X technologies
Anja Dakić, also from the Centre for Digital Safety & Security, impressed the jury with her channel emulator, which realistically simulates radio connections between vehicles under laboratory conditions. This enables reliable testing of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies, reduces time-consuming practical tests and makes a significant contribution to road safety and efficient mobility.
Spin-offs as drivers of technological innovation and economic success
"In recent years, we have successfully founded seven spin-offs at the AIT, two in the last year alone, with more in the pipeline," explains Svejkovsky. "Our spin-off topics range from life sciences and the digital platform economy to innovative solutions for urban development and infrastructure. This spectrum illustrates how application-oriented and wide-ranging our research is."
Cooperations with universities, funding agencies, incubators and industry partners are crucial for the sustainable success of the spin-offs. "We create targeted networks in order to optimise the transition from research to commercial implementation and build successful long-term business models. This networked approach is essential in order to establish innovations from the AIT on the market in an effective and scalable manner," concludes Svejkovsky.