w-fFORTE stands for competent women in business and innovation

w-fFORTE is a programme initiated by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth and is implemented in the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft mbH – FFG). The programme is embedded in the fFORTE initiative, which is sponsored by the Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture; the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology; the Ministry of Science and Research; and the Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth. It is further supported by the programmes FEMtech and fFORTE academic.

Central content-related concerns are: optimising career options for women in research and innovation, enabling equal opportunities for women and men in RTDI programmes, visualising female researchers and managers and their successes in public, enhancing the attractiveness of scientific and technological fields of work for women and, finally, working against the underrepresentation of women in innovation/science-related fields of work.
w-fFORTE focuses on career options for women in science, management or as self-employed persons: we address female researchers, technicians, engineers, company founders, self-employed persons and managers in technology and science.

It is for this reason that the Contact Point has been established as a service and information centre. The w-fFORTE Knowledge Base serves to extend basic knowledge, e.g. by commissioning studies and publishing new, varied images of and perspectives on women in research and innovation. The third area of interest for w-fFORTE is the establishment of Laura Bassi Centres of Expertise: innovative research centres for applied basic research.  

w-fFORTE considers itself an actively organising yet at the same time a learning programme – its findings are to be made available to other innovation-related programmes.