Congress

If you commission the Congress Services team, it is important to clarify some questions:

• Who is the official organiser? 
  Please note that there must be only one organiser (organising institution). This refers to the organiser who is left with any profit or loss once the event accounts have been settled, and acts as the organiser in dealings with external parties. 
  If there is more than one organiser, a non-trading partnership (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts) will be established.
  All other actors involved may only act as as 'supporters', 'academic cooperation partners' or 'sponsors'. 
  Furthermore, the organiser is also the invoice recipient. Also, liability rests with the organiser.
• Is there a major event taking place in the same city on the desired date?
  We recommend checking whether any other major event is taking place in Vienna at the same time. If this is the case, your participants might face difficulties in booking hotel rooms or may even attend the other event.
  The Vienna Convention Bureau provides an online list of all registered events taking place in the City of Vienna.
• Do I have to book event rooms via the Venue Management of the Conference and Event Management service unit at the University of Vienna?
  If you need rooms at the University of Vienna, you first have to clarify if you have to book them via the Venue Management of the Conference and Event Management service unit.
• Which services offered by the Congress Services team do you need?
  The Congress Services team offers various services, ranging from participant management, website maintenance to abstract handling and accommodation arrangements. You can find an overview of all services on our website.
  To send a request, please use our web form.

PLEASE NOTE: Once you have finalised all relevant details, please allow approximately 14 days for developing and testing the online abstract submission, registration and hotel reservation.

• Which types of participation fees are managed by the Congress Services team?
  Provided that the University of Vienna is the sole organiser, participants may be charged with participation fees without VAT for the (academic) event.
  You can include social programme activities which are free of charge in the registration form. Under social programme, you can find important information about what to consider for fee-based social programme activities.
• Have you already signed and sent back the quotation you received from us?
  After you have specified the required conference services, you receive a quotation. Please check the quotation carefully and send the signed quotation back to officially commission the Congress Services team.

After clarifying all these questions with your conference coordinator, they will contact you to clarify the next steps.

For all events with a total budget exceeding EUR 5,000.00, a DP internal order number (project account) must be created. 

You can find further information on the External funding support services page.

PLEASE NOTE: A DP internal order number can only be created in cases in which the University of Vienna is the official organiser of the event (i.e. profit and loss remain with the University of Vienna and the University presents itself as the organiser in external communications). First, please check whether the University of Vienna is the official organiser before requesting a DP internal order number.

Another institution is the event organiser. In this case, you have to consult the Accounting and Finance service unit to clarify whether another account can or must be created.
If the Congress Services team is commissioned with participant management, it creates an ET (revenue) account for the administration of the participation fees. In this case, it is not necessary to request a DP internal order number.

The internal order number allows you to settle expenses already before receipt of the first payments.

Vienna Meeting Fund 2025-2028

The Vienna Meeting Fund 2025–2028 has been available since 2025.

The City of Vienna supports organisers of conferences and company events by means of the Vienna Meeting Fund 2025-2028.

The Vienna Meeting Fund 2025–2028 provides funding for international events lasting several days (with programme items taking place on at least two consecutive event days) that take place between 1 January 2025 and 1 December 2028. Funding is only available for international events with a subject-specific programme that take place in the eight months of January, February, March, April, July, August, November and December. International events within the meaning of the Funding Guidelines of the Vienna Meeting Fund 2025-2028 are gatherings of predominantly international participants (at least 50 % of the participants on site have travelled from abroad) to exchange professional information.
After the submission and formal evaluation of all submitted documents, applications are processed on a first-come, first-served basis. You can submit an application no earlier than 5 years before the actual event date.

Please note:

• As part of all marketing measures in connection with the subsidised event, the organiser must prominently display the Vienna Tourist Board logo where it makes sense and is thematically consistent. 
• According to section 6.1 of the Funding Guidelines, funding is provided only for costs paid to third parties. Internal settlements of services (within the University of Vienna) do not meet these requirements and can therefore not be taken into account as conference expenditure for the purposes of funding from the Vienna Convention Bureau (VCB).

What documents need to be submitted for the settlement of the funding?

The following documents must be submitted for settlement:

• Settlement form
• Invoices and proof of payment in accordance with legal requirements (bank transfer document and/or bank statement):
  • Invoices for other external, event-related services (accommodation, technical equipment, catering, etc.), up to the amount of the provisionally approved funding amount.
• Participant statistics (number of participants; national or international participants)
• Proof of the ÖkoEvent label or the Green Meeting/Green Event label according to the Austrian Ecolabel for the event for which the application is being submitted (module 2 only).

Please note that costs relating to support staff are not eligible for funding and therefore cannot be settled. The funding amount will be paid after the event, upon submission of all required documents required for settlement.

Please see the FAQs of the Vienna Convention Bureau for further information.

• External organiser (an institution other than the University of Vienna): As soon as you have received confirmation of funding from the Vienna Convention Bureau (VCB), please contact the Congress Services team to request the details of the project account (ET account), if one has been set up for participant management.

For events organised by the University of Vienna as a (*) public research institute, sponsorship invoices are issued without VAT.

(*) Public research institutes (such as the University of Vienna) are public bodies in the exercise of state authority that are not subject to unlimited corporation tax, value added tax and municipal tax.

Please consider advertising tax. Advertising services in print media, on television and radio, and in the field of outdoor advertising (e.g. posters) are subject to advertising tax, if they are provided in Austria in return for payment.

The advertising tax amounts to 5 per cent of the tax base amount. Further information is available on the website of the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

The Vienna Meeting Ticket is a tailor-made public transport ticket for congresses, conferences and meetings, provided by Wiener Linien. This ticket enables participants to make unlimited use of all means of public transport in Vienna (Kernzone Wien) for the entire duration of the event. Please see the website of the Vienna Convention Bureau for further information.

The Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) offer the ÖBB Congress Account – a new solution for event organisers and participants. The ÖBB Congress Account is tailor-made for events, meetings, conferences and other business-related events. It enables your participants to book climate-friendly, hassle-free and discounted journeys to and from the event. They can use the account to book and pay for discounted trips to the event themselves.

Please see the ÖBB website for further information.

The City Airport Train (CAT) offers tailor-made solutions for ticket purchase and booking as well as a wide range of communication options. The City Airport Train offers conference organisers the option to purchase CAT tickets for their events in advance. In line with the one-stop-shop principle, they can make them available to their event participants directly via a code, without the need to enter any further details. Meeting professionals also have access to a wide range of communication options for their conference.

Please see the website of the Vienna Convention Bureau for further information.

Contribute your share and have your meeting or event certified. As an Ecolabel licensee, we are happy to support you in organising a Green Meeting or Green Event at the University of Vienna.
If you are interested in certifying your event, please contact congress@univie.ac.at. If you intend to hold a Green Meeting/Green Event, external communication from the very beginning is especially crucial. Our staff responsible for Green Meetings are happy to give advice in a personal meeting. You can find further information about the certification on the Austrian Ecolabel website. Go to Austrian Ecolabel website

Please note that only events carried out at the following venues can be certified:

• Main Building of the University of Vienna (HG)
• Campus of the University of Vienna (UC)
  Except for: Alte Kapelle (not accessible for people with disabilities)
• Sky Lounge, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 (OMP)
  Certified Green Building according to the EU standard at the time of opening
• University of Vienna Biology Building (UBB)
  klimaaktiv SILVER award

An event does not need to be a certified Green Event or Green Meeting to be sustainable. Also without a certification, you can make a significant contribution to sustainable events. The Guidelines for Events at the University of Vienna provide information about important sustainability criteria that you must take into account when organising your event. To the Guidelines

The Congress Services team of the Conference and Event Management service unit at the University of Vienna is happy to help if you have any enquiries and provides advice about suppliers producing in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way.

TafelBox aims to spare cooked food and ready-prepared dishes of catering services at events from going to waste – an innovative and simple solution for saving food. The TafelBox is food-safe and biodegradable.

You can order TafelBoxes directly via the Tafel Österreich website.

We offer the following services for events that are exclusively held online:

• Participant management
• Abstract handling
• Conference website

We offer the following services for hybrid events:

• Participant management
• Abstract handling
• Conference website
• Conference materials (for participants/lecturers, etc. on site)
• Accommodation arrangements (for participants/lecturers, etc. on site)
• Airline cooperation (for participants/lecturers, etc. on site)

Do you have any questions about our venues or the technical equipment available for hybrid and online events? Information about event technology

The Vienna Convention Bureau provides...

• video footage of Vienna (such as City Walks produced specifically for virtual conferences or the YouTube series VIENNA/NOW), footage material;
• images showing Vienna in all seasons and in all its facets;
• virtual tours of Vienna’s museums and fascinating venues.

The Uni Wien Guides app allows participants to take a virtual tour of selected locations of the University of Vienna. 

The Vienna Convention Bureau (VCB) has compiled ideas for social programmes and provides them online.

Are you planning to take your event participants to a restaurant in Vienna?

You can find restaurant recommendations on the VCB website:

• Restaurants for group dining
• Viennese wine taverns (‘Heurige’)

You can also organise a guided tour of the University of Vienna as part of the social programme. Find out more about guided tours of the University

External organisers:
The Congress Services team can only manage participation fees for (academic) events if the organiser is a (*) public body (e.g. a university) or a non-profit association. Associations must submit a declaration confirming that they meet the formal and tax-related requirements for the non-profit status for tax purposes under section 34 et seq. of the Austrian federal tax code (Bundesabgabenordnung, BAO). You can find detailed information about this in the fact sheet on the non-profit status for tax purposes in Austria (in German). Participation fees for the (academic) event are charged to participants excluding VAT.
Social programme activities, for which participants have to pay separately, cannot be managed.

(*) Public research institutes (such as the University of Vienna) are public bodies in the exercise of state authority that are not subject to unlimited corporation tax, value added tax and municipal tax.

Additional information:

In the case of side events held in connection with an academic conference, every case needs to be assessed individually.

Depending on the nature and content of the side event, it must be assessed whether or not it has a connection to the public research institute (i.e. to the relevant academic conference). In this context, it is important that there is a functional connection between the side event and the content of the academic event.
Side events that purely or predominantly serve an entertainment purpose (e.g. visits to wine taverns and Viennese Heurige taverns, events for family members accompanying the conference participants, etc.) are not considered to have a sufficient connection to the public research institute. They are classified as private-sector activities which are subject to VAT in accordance with margin note 268 of the Austrian VAT regulations (Umsatzssteuerrichtlinien, UStR).

Unless the side events are invoiced separately, the fee collected from participants in the academic event must be split into

• a non-taxable participation fee for the academic event (including refreshments during breaks) and
• a separate fee subject to VAT for the non-academic, entertainment side event, plus VAT
• The following two circumstances can be signs that a side event predominantly serves an entertainment purpose and is non-academic in nature: participation in the side event is voluntary and participants have to pay separately to participate in them AND/OR the side event takes place somewhere else and not at the venue of the academic event.

You can find more information on the websites of the following insurance companies:

• WIENER STÄDTISCHE insurance 
• Europäische Reiseversicherung insurance

To avoid financial loss, we recommend that conference participants conclude a conference cancellation insurance with the Europäische Reiseversicherung insurance provider. 
A lot can happen before a conference – this cancellation insurance covers the cancellation fees for participants if they are unexpectedly unable to attend the conference for a reason covered by the policy (e.g. due to sudden illness). In addition, insurance cover is provided if you have to leave the conference prematurely. Further information is available on the website of the Europäische Reiseversicherung insurance provider. 
If you would also like to offer your participants the option of cancellation insurance, please contact us at congress(at)univie.ac.at.

The term ‘organiser’ refers to the institution which is left with any profit or loss once the event accounts have been settled, and which acts as the organiser in dealings with external parties.

Any other actors involved may only act as ‘academic cooperation partners’, ‘supporters’ or ‘sponsors’.

If there is more than one organiser, a non-trading partnership (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts) must be established. This may mean that participation fees, including VAT, have to be charged to the participants. Further information is available on the website of WKO (in German). 
In this case, the Congress Services team does not offer participant management including financial management. 
Therefore, there can only be one official event organiser.

• Making changes and cancellations. Your guests can independently register and deregister from anywhere at any time.
• Customising print material. Create personalised material such as name badges or participation certificates through a semi-automated process using the registration data.
• Targeted invitation management. Send a reminder for your upcoming event to persons who registered for it. You can easily identify VIP and add them to the list of people you have to welcome. If a VIP has has not replied to your invitation, they are contacted proactively.
• Flexible communication and organisation. The online registration allows you to communicate changes to the programme or the postponement of an event in a structured and timely manner, if necessary.
• Additional information via the newsletter. You can easily send any necessary further information to registered participants. This allows you to announce general regulations (e.g. relating to COVID-19) or other security restrictions (access restrictions, guest registration) to all guests. If necessary, it is possible to label seats in the event room with seat numbers.
• Weekly reporting for accurate measures. You gain an overview of the booking situation with regard to the number of participants and payments received. Double or multiple bookings are filtered. This allows you to calculate quantities (catering, print material,...) in a targeted way.
• Keeping track of capacities using the waiting list. Automated waiting lists enable you to make optimal use of capacities. This allows you to reduce the number of guests that you have to turn away on site or that have to be content with attending the event in an overflow room*.
• Guaranteeing a sufficient security level. Being able to exactly quantify the number of expected participants is essential for the coordination of security personnel and the systematic planning of orderly movements and gatherings of people.
• Simplifying professional follow-up. This enables you to filter for target groups for reporting after the event, participant statistics or photo reports.

* Overflow rooms are rooms in which event participants can follow your event if the main event venue has reached the maximum capacity.