The Austrian IMU Adhering Organization is the Austrian Mathematical Society (Österreichische Mathematische Gesellschaft ÖMG). The president of the ÖMG nominates a CR for ICMI, usually in consultation with the didactics commission of the ÖMG.
The main association for Mathematics Education (Research) in the three German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland is Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Mathematik (GDM). It holds annual five-day conferences with more than 800 participants, annual or bi-annual summer schools for young researchers, and annual meetings of topic working groups. One such working group focuses on mathematics education in Austria in particular.
Within the Austrian Mathematical Society (ÖMG), there is a didactics committee, whose members are elected by the members of the ÖMG. The didactics committee meets at least twice a year and organises a teacher education day, which usually takes place in Vienna the Friday after Easter. The proceedings of these events are published.
Institutional research on mathematics education takes place at six universities and eleven university colleges for teacher education.
As members of the Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Mathematik (GDM), scholars in Austria use and support the journals run by the GDM. The main research journal of the GDM is the Journal für Mathematik-Didaktik (JMD), which publishes in German and English. The GDM also runs the international journal ZDM Mathematics Education, which operates worldwide and only publishes in English. The German-speaking GDM-journal Zeitschrift für Mathematikdidaktik in Forschung und Praxis (ZMFP) is dedicated to the transfer of research into classroom practices.
Apart from the journals run by the GDM, the University of Salzburg hosts an annual journal called Mathematik im Unterricht, and the didactics commission of the ÖMG issues the above-mentioned proceedings.
A framework for teacher education is legislated by national law, with local universities and university colleges for teacher education developing curricula within this framework. From fall 2026 onwards, teacher education requires 3 years of Bachelor studies and 2 years of Master studies. The first year of employment is organized as an induction phase with supervision of teacher educators.
In Austria, primary school targets the school years 1–4. Primary school teachers are generalists with a limited obligatory part of their studies invested in mathematics and mathematics education, although institutions may offer and students may choose specialisations in mathematics and mathematics education.
Secondary school targets the school years 5–13. Many higher secondary schools have a vocational focus and school curricula for mathematics differ in these schools. Secondary school teachers have to study at least two school subjects, with mathematics being offered by all universities who host teacher education, and by several university colleges for teacher education.
Political guidelines for mathematics education are issued on a national level by the Ministry of Education. These guidelines include education standards, which provide very general orientations for each school subject. Curricula are issued as a combined document for all school subjects but separated by school type. There are curricula for primary schools, for lower secondary school, for academic higher secondary schools, for several vocational higher secondary schools, and for special-needs schools. Lower secondary school starts with introducing fractions and ends with linear equation systems, the Pythagoras theorem, probability, and the problem of irrationality, while higher secondary school usually leads to calculus, analytical geometry, and probability distributions. Mathematics education in Austria focusses on calculation and applications but not on proof.