The Acoustics Research Institute (ARI) is an interdisciplinary research institution of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, dedicated to application-open fundamental research in acoustics, based on a solid mathematical background, in cooperation with internationally acclaimed scientific partners. Many scientific questions in acoustics involve different steps from the production, over the propagation up to the perception of sound. To be able to formulate precise acoustical and perceptual models using algorithms, the involvement of mathematics, numerics and signal processing is essential. A multidisciplinary approach is therefore necessary for frontier research in acoustics. This allows innovative research approaches based on the synergy effects of multidisciplinary research as well as stimulating new concepts for the individual research field. Many projects dealt with at ARI rely on a deep expertise in the individual research fields as well as on a multidisciplinary cooperation. The methods resulting from our fundamental research are implemented in various software systems, among them STx, which has a long history of establishing cooperation with other organizations.

The Acoustics Research Institute integrates phonetics, psychoacoustics, computational physics and mathematics. It is open to other disciplines and work groups as long as they fit within the multidisciplinary environment. This approach makes ARI unique in Austria, and even worldwide there are only a few research organizations that conduct comparable, multidisciplinary research. As there are only a few faculties at Austrian universities providing academic education related to acoustics, the institute additionally fills this gap by the personal engagement of ARI’s scientists.

In the future, the Acoustics Research Institute will expand its approach “Excellence by Synergy” even more. This will be achieved by further intensifying the collaboration between the research groups and actively searching for new research groups fitting within its scope. Additionally, the cooperation with external organizations will be strengthened even more. The primary intention of the future work of ARI is to further strengthen its position within the international top-level scientific community in acoustics. In the long run, the Acoustics Research Institute shall be established as the international centre for multidisciplinary research in acoustics.