Dr Clemens Martin Auer
President
European Health Forum Gastein
Austria
Clemens Martin Auer started his career as Austria’s leading civil servant in the public health system in March 2003 as chief of staff of then Federal Minister of Health. From September 2005 to 2018, he was the director general of the Ministry of Health, responsible for the Austrian health system (care planning, financing, quality, and digitization) and international affairs (EU, WHO, OECD, UN) as well as for the oversight of the Public Health and Food Authority (AGES). As the managing director of the Federal Health Agency (2005 to 2018), he was responsible, inter alia, for the overall planning of the public health care system and hospital financing by the Republic of Austria, with an overall annual budget of almost 30 billion euros.
From 2018 onwards, Auer was the Special Envoy for Health of the Ministry of Health, from 2019 to 2022 a member and vice chair of the Executive Board for WHO EURO of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. In 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, he was a lead national coordinator in Austria, and the co-chair of the Joint Procurement Board for the vaccines for 450 million EU citizens. On reaching the age of 65, he retired from his positions in the Ministry of Health in June 2022.
Clemens Martin’s academic background is philosophy and political science; he holds a doctor’s degree.
Since 2017, Auer has been president of the European Health Forum Gastein, an interdisciplinary European health conference in which the European Commission, the WHO and the Austrian Ministry of Health take part.
For meritorious services, Auer was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver with Star of the Republic of Austria (2014) and the Golden Ring of Honor of the Austrian Social Insurance Institutions (2018).