Building a bridge to Austria for Austrians Abroad

Austrian talents abroad are dynamic, successful and innovative... and they are happy to return home if the framework conditions are right for them. ABA has now put together a new service package for precisely this target group to make the return transparent, structured and smooth for the whole family.

More people belong to this group than one might think: Austrians who have successfully founded a company abroad or are involved as scientists in innovative R&D projects or work as executives in global corporations can be found all over the world.

Dr. Sabine Heitzeneder, for example, is a cancer researcher. She has been working in the USA for almost ten years on the development of cellular immunotherapies for aggressive tumor forms in children. Since 2016, she has been working at the Cancer Center at Stanford University in California. The Upper Austrian recently received the ASciNA Award (Austrian Scientists and Scholars in North America) from the Austrian Ministry of Science. The award was given for her publication in the journal Cancer Cell. In it, she describes the development of a cellular immunotherapy with the body's own T cells. These are equipped with "chimeric antigen receptors (CAR)" and thus reprogrammed to act in a targeted manner against cancer cells. 

Another example is the Carinthian fusion physicist, Dr. Florian Laggner, who in his youth was a professional handball player for the Austrian club AON Fivers Margareten, became state champion and studied at the Vienna University of Technology. He has been living in the USA for 5 years and works at Princeton University in the Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Together with a large team of researchers and a highly qualified equipped laboratory, they are investigating how electricity can be transformed from fusion energy to provide an alternative energy source in the near future.   

Thomas Meth, a native of Lower Austria, has been in the US for 25 years and is a co-founder and Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of the Enviva family of companies. Enviva is the world’s largest producer of wood pellets. Biomass plays a very important role in renewable energy strategies to drive carbon reduction and limit dependence on fossil fuels, especially in the current energy crisis.

New Services at ABA for Austrians Abroad  

Currently, about 580,000 Austrians:inside live abroad. More than three quarters of them reside in Germany (257,000), Switzerland (67,000), Great Britain (33,000), the USA (30,500), Australia (20,000), Spain (12,000) and the Republic of South Africa, Brazil and Argentina (10,000 each). 

The motivatio reasons to return home are manifold: schooling of the children, aging parents, a job change of the partner, social security or to enjoy the extremely high quality of life in Austria.   

ABA extends its range of services to this important target group in order to make the return of Austrians as smooth as possible.  

From residence permits and general questions about living and working in Austria to setting up your own business: ABA sees itself as a one-stop store for the specific concerns of this group of people.

These new service packages have a focus on the following 3 Cs: Connect, Community and Customized, because ABA wants to offer a network and individual solutions that address the specific needs of Austrians who venture back home after a successful career abroad. 

• Connect Success - No one in the country has as much location know-how and networking expertise as ABA. Continue writing your own success story in Austria - with ABA you will be sustainably successful in Austria.   
• Community Spirit – ABA offers webinars, newsletters and consultations on complex topics and build the bridge from the world to a network in Austria with many competent partners from science and business.  
• Customized Solutions – Topics such as Dual Career, Remote Work, Double Taxation, Exit Tax of Green Card holder are familiar and ABA offers individual solutions to facilitate the return to Austria. ABA provides aan extensive network in questions of tax and labor law and also support the family members in immigration tasks, job search, school enrollment and many other concerns, together with our cooperation partners. 

Gabriele Gradnitzer, Managing Partner / Amrop Austria, confirms in an interview with ABA that she receives more and more requests from Austrian companies to explicitly fill certain positions with an Austrian who has the necessary qualifications and international experience. These top talents are highly valued on the Austrian labor market and are now also in high demand.

If you are an Austrian who is considering to relocate back to Austria , please do not hesitate to contact Katja Otter.