Drupal for Austria's Research Funding Agency: Accessible Website Relaunch for the FFG
When a public institution modernizes its digital infrastructure, accessibility, scalability, and editorial independence must all work in tandem. ACOLONO, a Vienna-based web agency specializing in open-source systems, implemented this for the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
The Initial Situation
The FFG supports application-oriented and industry-relevant research in Austria with a view to strengthening the country’s position as a business location. It is wholly owned by the Republic of Austria, with the Federal Ministry of Labour and the Economy and the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, the Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology acting as the owners’ representatives. Since its founding in 2004, it has supported over 60,000 companies, universities, and research institutions in more than 65,000 funded projects, with a total funding volume of over 13 billion euros.
The existing CMS based on Drupal 9 was monolingual and had a rigid content structure. It did not sufficiently meet the requirements of the Web Accessibility Act (WZG). The project began as a purely front-end relaunch but evolved over time into a fundamental overhaul of the structure, presentation, and maintenance of the funding information. The originally planned translation of individual pages also grew into a complete multilingual system.
Why Drupal
Drupal 10 offers concrete advantages for public institutions with complex content structures, strict authorization models, and legal requirements. Multilingual support is a native feature of the framework. The role-based model allows for granular permissions for large editorial teams, even with multi-tiered, sometimes restrictive approval structures. GDPR-compliant hosting on European infrastructure is possible without additional configuration.
As an open-source CMS, Drupal does not incur any ongoing licensing costs. The Contrib ecosystem addresses the specific needs of public agencies. The community ensures long-term development and security updates.
Solution
ACOLONO redeveloped ffg. at using Drupal 10, with a modern front-end stack and an architecture designed for continuous content growth.
Accessibility. In collaboration with Wienfluss, an agency specializing in accessibility audits, structural, content-related, and interactive barriers were identified and resolved. Two specific solutions from the audit: A calendar overview, which was initially implemented as an HTML table, was replaced with a list view, since tables are only permitted when used for genuine tabular presentation. Additionally, a custom Svelte map component was equipped with a “Skip to Next Section” tab menu, allowing users to skip large blocks of content using the keyboard, in addition to screen reader optimization and ARIA labels. This approach was applied to other large components as well.
Component-based design system. The front end was designed in Figma and linked directly to Storybook. Thanks to Tailwind CSS variables and consistent naming conventions in Figma, design and development remain synchronized throughout the process. Each component in Storybook links to its corresponding Figma design, including automatic accessibility checks, responsive previews, and documented source code. Drupal uses these components directly, without duplication.
Landing Page Builder. Authorized editorial staff members create complex, modular pages such as ffg. at/dih on their own: with filterable maps, a JSON-based calendar for events from external sources, anchor-based navigation, success stories, and centrally managed contacts. Heading menus and structures are generated automatically.
Multilingual support without data loss. ACOLONO migrated all existing content into a multilingual structure using custom update hooks, while editorial operations continued uninterrupted and without a one-time migration, since editorial teams had to continue working in parallel. Training materials and documentation supported the transition.
Grant Finder with Solr. The ffg. at/foerderungen section has been restructured both technically and conceptually: consolidated and standardized data fields, a faceted filtering system based on Solr as the search server, with custom developments for integration into the Drupal Search API to enable centralized filtering of a wide variety of content.
Technical Infrastructure. The architecture is based on CI/CD processes via GitLab for fast, reliable iterations. The site is hosted on a dedicated European cluster using Docker Swarm for load balancing and scalability, designed to handle high traffic and ensure fast recovery times. The layout has been completely migrated to Drupal LayoutBuilder.
Project Management. For an organization with over 400 employees and a correspondingly large number of stakeholders, ACOLONO assumed the role of proxy product owner, serving as the central point of contact for stakeholders. IT support requests and incident management are handled in a structured manner via Jira ServiceDesk.
Technologies Used:
Drupal 10, Solr, Storybook, Figma, Tailwind CSS, Svelte, LayoutBuilder, Docker Swarm, GitLab CI/CD, Jira ServiceDesk
Special Challenges
ffg. at had to meet several concurrent requirements: ongoing editorial operations throughout the entire development process, an authorization model for over 400 employees, and coordination sessions with around 50 participants in large online meetings, during which ACOLONO walked the editorial teams through the new system.
In practice, accessibility required detailed technical work that went far beyond automated testing tools, as the calendar and map components demonstrate. Another technical challenge was the complex, overlapping funding periods: A single funding project can have multiple phases at the same time, which must be flexibly displayed and hidden in facets, filters, and cached overviews.
The requirement—which was originally just to implement a front-end relaunch—proved to be a challenge in its own right. In practice, numerous content types had to be adapted and expanded, while at the same time many Drupal modules were replaced with more up-to-date alternatives.
During the course of the project, ACOLONO published several open-source contributions: bug fixes for the Views Exposed Filters Summary module, an improvement to the Facets module, and a new module for Block Conditions, all of which are publicly documented on drupal. org.
Result
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Accessible platform in accordance with the WZG, validated through an external accessibility audit conducted by Wienfluss and improved through an iterative process
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A fully multilingual Drupal website with no data loss and seamless editor workflows
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The FFG editorial team creates and manages complex content, landing pages, and funding overviews without development support
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A robust design system in Figma, directly linked to Storybook, for ongoing collaboration and further development
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A fully GDPR-compliant European hosting infrastructure with high availability and fast recovery times, despite an extensive content database and high system complexity
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Structured Incident Management via Jira ServiceDesk for Faster Problem Resolution
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Three open-source contributions on drupal. org, developed within the context of the project
The FFG project demonstrates how accessibility can be ensured at the system level, validated by an external audit and recognized with a special award for accessibility. As of June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act will also apply to the private sector—known as the BaFG in Austria and the BFSG in Germany. ACOLONO checks your website for WCAG compliance and specifically identifies areas where action is needed.
Are you planning a website relaunch, a migration, or another digital project and looking for the right partner? Get in touch with us.
ACOLONO is a web agency based in Vienna, Austria, specializing in Drupal and open-source technologies. ACOLONO develops websites, portals, and digital platforms for public institutions, NGOs, and businesses, with a focus on accessibility, component-based architecture, and multilingual systems. ACOLONO has been active in the Drupal community since 2005, with over 950 issue credits on drupal. org in the last twelve months.
About the platform: ffg. at