COMET Centres ACIB GmbH and Linz Center of Mechatronics GmbH

From October 2017 to January 2018, the Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) carried out an audit of the Graz-based biotechnology company ACIB GmbH and the Linz Center of Mechatronics GmbH; both are two research entities established in the framework of the research funding programme COMET – “Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies”. The audit focused on the organization, the financing and the strategy of the companies. The audited period spanned the years from 2013 through 2017.

At the time of the audit, the owners of the ACIB GmbH were the Graz University of Technology, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (36% each), the Universities of Graz (12%) and Innsbruck (8%) and the Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH (8%). The Linz Center of Mechatronics GmbH was owned by a private association (35%), the Upper Austrian Research GmbH (30%), the Johannes Kepler University Linz (25%) and a private company from the field of steel-based technological and industrial goods (10%). Both companies financed their activities in the framework of the COMET programme via the Federation and the provinces (up to 50%; at a ratio of 2:1) and via contributions by business and scientific partners.