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N3uron Supports Research and Future Digital Skills at Hochschule Burgenland
Digital transformation depends as much on people as on technology. Through its Academic and Research Program, N3uron is providing Forschung Burgenland with software licenses, technical resources, and support at no cost for applied research. The collaboration also lays the groundwork for future building-automation teaching at Hochschule Burgenland, with practical sessions currently planned for the summer semester of 2027.
Forschung Burgenland and Hochschule Burgenland are separate but closely linked organizations. The first leads the applied research activities, while the second plans to bring that practical experience into the classroom. Roman Stelzer, Research Area Manager for Building Automation and Management at Forschung Burgenland, connects both dimensions of the collaboration.
As Stelzer explains:
“Buildings already generate valuable data. N3uron helps us make this data accessible to other applications and create new opportunities for research and teaching. It allows us to investigate how existing building data can be used for more efficient operation while giving our students practical experience with digital technologies.”
— Roman Stelzer, Research Area Manager for Building Automation and Management at Forschung Burgenland
From Applied Research to Future Classroom Practice
The collaboration is already active on the research side. At Forschung Burgenland, N3uron is being used to explore how operational building data can be made accessible to other systems and applied to real energy-efficiency challenges.
Teaching is the next step. Hochschule Burgenland plans to use N3uron in future practical sessions so that building-technology students can learn how operational data is acquired, exchanged, and integrated across different systems. The longer-term goal is to help them evaluate digital technologies, make informed investment decisions, and implement solutions themselves.
The applied work forms part of a research project funded by FFG Austria. It gives the future teaching activity a real operational foundation rather than relying only on theoretical examples or isolated laboratory exercises.
The technical architecture is deliberately straightforward. The building-automation system exposes data as BACnet objects; N3uron makes that data available to other applications through OPC UA and MQTT:
Building automation
BACnet objects
N3uron
OPC UA / MQTT
Other applications
This architecture provides a working research environment today and a practical reference for future teaching. It shows how open protocols can make existing data accessible, reduce dependencies between systems, and allow the same operational information to support different applications and use cases.
A Living Lab for Research and Future Learning
Forschung Burgenland’s Living Lab environment includes building automation, heating and cooling, ventilation, photovoltaic generation, and battery storage. Researchers can therefore work with a realistic combination of technologies and study how building and energy systems interact as a whole.
When practical teaching begins, this same environment will help students connect classroom knowledge with the realities of building technology. They will be able to experiment, test ideas, and understand how data can be made accessible and reusable across applications.
Extending Industrial Data Integration into Academic Environments
Through the Academic and Research Program, N3uron provides software licenses, technical resources, and standard technical support at no cost as an in-kind contribution to the collaboration. This support also includes access to product documentation, N3uron Academy, configuration examples, and demonstration environments.
The purpose is not a conventional commercial software deployment. It is to enable applied research, education, and knowledge transfer while giving academic teams access to the same type of industrial data-integration technology used in professional environments.
The educational initiative has also been designed to respect academic independence. Rather than promoting a particular vendor, the focus is on helping students develop transferable skills in digital communication, interoperability, data integration, and open architectures.
These are the foundations students will need to assess not only whether an integration works, but whether it is maintainable, secure, scalable, and adaptable. They are also essential for organizations that want to move beyond isolated digital projects and build lasting transformation.
Preparing Future Professionals for Digital Transformation
For Hochschule Burgenland, the planned teaching activity will connect classroom knowledge with the realities of building technology. Students will gain a practical context for understanding how digital solutions are evaluated, implemented, and maintained, and how today’s technical decisions influence future flexibility and investment.
Technology alone does not deliver digital transformation; people do. By making industrial technology available to research today and supporting its future use in education, N3uron is helping close the gap between academic knowledge and the skills organizations need to build scalable, reliable, and secure digital infrastructures.
