Research Forum of the Universities of Applied Sciences

The 16th conference took place at the FH St. Pölten and was held under the theme "Connecting Research".  A total of 350 researchers from all over Austria exchanged ideas and experienced first-hand how and what research can connect. The varied program included around 150 presentations and 13 interactive sessions. The six thematic tracks of the conference were dedicated to the topics of society, regions, sustainability, technology, business & innovation and talent.

Bachelor students from the Environmental, Process and Energy Engineering program were also involved. Within the course "Design Project" of the fifth semester, led by Jan Back and Lukas Möltner, the students developed a project, which they were allowed to present as a poster at the conference. Christian Bachmann, Johannes Groth, Philip Patschg, Simon Praxmarer, Patrick Senn and Hannes Unterhofer wrote the poster titled "Heating and hot water design for a multi-apartment house with heat pump and photovoltaic support". The aim of the study was to project the heating system for a four-story residential complex with a total living area of 2,000 m² using various planning methods.

In Track Three, which was entitled "Connecting Sustainability", Silvia Öttl, a lecturer in the Smart Building Technologies study program, held a presentation on the topic of "Tension among neighbors - generating energy together". "Connecting Technology" was the topic of the fourth track in which Julian Huber, also a lecturer in the Smart Building Technologies study program, gave a presentation entitled "Monitoring indoor air quality: position-dependent measurement of CO2 concentration" and Lukas Zingerle, a master's student in the Environmental, Process and Energy Technology study program, spoke on "Pressure-time method for determining absolute flow rates at hydropower plants and for calibrating relative measurement methods".

In 2024, the Research Forum of the Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences will take place at the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems.