In front of around 350 guests from business and research, the B&C Private Foundation awarded Austria’s top research achievements with the Houska Prize in three categories for the 18th time at a festive award ceremony on 27 April 2023: University research, research & development in SMEs and, for the first time, non-university research.

In this way, the B&C would like to contribute to strengthening Austria as a business location and also express its appreciation for the outstanding research work being done in this country. In addition to innovation performance, the economic effect is an essential criterion in the awarding of the Houska Prize.

TU Vienna, Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft and Cube Dx win Houskapreis 2023

In the category “University Research”, Michael Harasek, professor at the Vienna University of Technology, won with a process for processing and compressing hydrogen for fuel cells. Elisabeth Häusler from the Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft convinced the expert panels in the category “Non-university research” with the Connected Boot for assessing the quality of skiing. In the category “Research & Development in SMEs”, Bernhard Ronacher, founder of the Upper Austrian company Cube Dx, received the Austrian Research Oscar for “compact sequencing”, a procedure for early sepsis diagnostics.

The three first-place winners each receive prize money of 150,000 euros.

We congratulate all the prize winners and sincerely thank everyone who contributed to this research achievement!

1st place in the category “Non-university research”:
The networked ski boot for assessing the quality of skiing

In sport, the measurement and evaluation of movement quality play an important role. Existing systems are often inaccurate and not geared towards specific sports, such as skiing. With the Connected (CTD) Boot, which was developed by the Salzburg Research Institute and the University of Salzburg, the quality of skiing can be assessed and subsequently improved with the help of various sensor technologies and machine learning. The CTD-Boot can use sensors to measure individual skiing behaviour, calculate skiing-relevant parameters such as angle of ascent or speed, and assess skiing ability with the specially developed and scientifically verified Carving Score. The data is transmitted to the smartphone and can be called up immediately. This was previously only possible in a laboratory. Skiers thus gain better insight into their own performance, can fine-tune their technique and thus improve their skiing experience. This innovation is an important milestone on the way to further digitally connected products.

Houska Prize of the B&C Private Foundation

The Houska Prize was established by the B&C Private Foundation in 2005 to improve the financial basis for innovation and research in Austria and to express its appreciation for the outstanding research work being done in Austria. With a total endowment of 750,000 euros, the Houskapreis is Austria’s largest private prize for application-oriented research. In this way, the B&C Private Foundation is following its foundation purpose of promoting Austrian entrepreneurship and sustainably strengthening Austria as a business location. Prizes are awarded to the best projects from university research and non-university research as well as innovative research achievements by SMEs in three separate categories. The Houska Prize is awarded annually and is named after Wolfgang Houska, a former member of the Foundation. The model for the design of the golden Houska Prize trophy was Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr, who also went down in history as an inventor.