The search tool is build of four filters

• full-text search
• main category
• sub-category (appears when main category is specified)
• provider

which are all connected with an AND operator. 

The full-text search explores the data fields Title, Abstract, Background, Keywords and Reference No. of all technology offers (TOs). The following features are included:

1. if several search terms are entered without any operator, they are automatically linked with an OR operator.
   example: data mining will find all TOs that contain data and/or mining
2. "X": The string X has to appear in a TO in the exact form as entered.
   example: "data mining" will find all TOs that contain the exact string "data mining"
   
3. +X: The term X has to occur in a TO (AND operator).
   example 1: data mining +learning will find all TOs that definitely contain the term learning
   example 2: +data +mining +learning will find all TOs that definitely contain all the given terms
   
4. -X: The term X must not occur in a TO (NOT operator).
   example: data mining -learning will find all TOs that contain data and/or mining but definitely DO NOT contain the term learning

The order of the listed TOs is based on relevance and topicality, TOs containing more search terms appear further up in the list.