ERC Grant
We are very pleased that Stefan Giljum from the Institute for Ecological Economics is the recipient of WU’s first ERC Consolidator Grant.
FINEPRINT – Spatially explicit material footprints: fine-scale assessment of Europe’s global environmental and social impacts
Project head: Stefan Giljum (Institute for Ecological Economics)
Supply chains are increasingly being organized on an international level in today’s globalized economy. Products’ end users are usually located far away from wherever the raw materials for the products were sourced, and from whatever social and ecological impacts this may cause. The project proposes a new method for calculating material use footprints, using a spatial, multi-regional resource-tracking model to make connections between the exploitation of resources around the world and impacts like water shortages, deforestation, and mining conflicts. The study aims to not only vastly improve the accuracy of footprint models, but also to offer new ways of assessing the sustainability of individual resource flows and supply chains.
EU Projects (Horizon 2020)
SPECIAL – Scalable Policy-awarE Linked Data arChitecture for prIvacy, trAnsparency and compliance
Project heads: Sarah Spiekermann-Hoff (Institute for Management Information Systems) and Axel Polleres (Institute for Information Business)
SPECIAL is a research and innovation project funded by the European Commission as part of the Horizon 2020 framework program. WU is responsible for the technical coordination of the project, and an interdisciplinary team from two WU institutes provides different research perspectives. The SPECIAL project is investigating the contradictions between big data innovation and complex aspects of data protection with regard to big data and will be developing technical solutions for making the two compatible. The SPECIAL platform aims to allow citizens and organizations to exchange and analyze data, while maintaining individuals’ data sovereignty.
PERCEIVE – Perception and Evaluation of Regional and Cohesion Policies by Europeans and Identification with the Values of Europe
Projects heads: Renate Meyer (Institute for Organization Studies) and Markus Höllerer (Institute for Public Management und Governance)
The goal of the PERCEIVE project is to contribute to a better understanding of European solidarity in the sense of “unity in diversity.” The study is investigating to what extent various national and EU-level political measures create different perceptions of the European Union, and any regional effects they may have on citizens’ identification with the EU. PERCEIVE takes a multidisciplinary approach, combining aspects of social sciences, political sciences, and regional economics. In addition to conventional analytical methods, the study emphasizes innovative approaches (e.g. semantic discourse analysis) that allow researchers to identify semantic structures within political discourse. Finally, a computer simulation is planned to model “what if?” scenarios and the long-term effects of cohesion-promoting measures.
COMPASS – On course to Responsible Innovation
Project head: André Martinuzzi (Institute for Managing Sustainability)
COMPASS is the second project coordinated by WU in the Horizon 2020 program. The project’s goal is to work with small and medium-sized enterprises to find ways to make research and innovation processes more sustainable and responsible. The study is based on the new concept of Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI), which includes aspects like gender equality, open access, public engagement, and ethics in research and innovation. COMPASS is supporting European companies in the sectors of nanotechnology, cyber security, and biomedicine working towards more responsible research by providing training materials, a self-check tool, and strategies developed in cooperation with the companies. Together with leading universities in Cyprus and the UK as well as business and civil society partners, WU will be making an important contribution to involving society in science and innovation and towards encouraging responsible research and innovation.
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
The following projects were approved after successfully completing the FWF peer review process:
- Factor analysis of emerging market bond funds
Project head: Engelbert Dockner (Research Institute for Capital Markets, passed away in April 2017)
- Collaborative consumption: Power, trust, and cooperation
Project head: Eva Hofmann (Competence Center for Empirical Research Methods)
- Non-resident taxation
Project head: Michael Lang (Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law)
- Shrinking and regularizing finite mixture models
Project head: Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter (Institute for Statistics and Mathematics)
- Process and resource-supported information systems (PRAIS) (Elise Richter grant)
Grant recipient: Cristina Cabanillas Macías (Institute for Information Business)
- Implicit theories in ethical management (Erwin Schrödinger grant)
Grant recipient: Georg Kodydek
OeNB Anniversary Fund
The following projects were approved after successfully completing the OeNB’s international peer review process:
- Universities as sanctuaries? Demand for higher education throughout the economic cycle in Europe
Project head: Monika Bartkowska (Institute for Economic Policy and Industrial Economics)
- Development paths towards a prosperous and fair EU bioeconomy
Project head: Stefan Giljum (Institute for Ecological Economics)
- Executing the estates of Kurt W. Rothschild and Josef Steindl
Project head: Thomas Grandner (Institute for Labor Economics)
- The significance of arbitration clauses in the treaty policies of CEE countries
Project head: Michael Lang (Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law)
- Contingency factors in the use of crowd evaluation
Project head: Christopher Lettl (Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization) - Social companies: A global study of support needs and organizational influences
Project head: Peter Vandor (Competence Center for Nonprofit Organizations and Social Entrepreneurship)
- Integration and regional developments in the Mediterranean region. A comparison between Italy and Spain
Project head: Rudy Weissenbacher (Institute for International Economics and Development)
- Managing business families – Success factors in different Generations
Project head: Hermann Frank (Research Institute for Family Business)
- Political options for long-term growth in consideration of complex financial markets
Project head: Armon Rezai (Institute for Ecological Economics)
- Global value chains and standard costs
Project head: Alexander Rust (Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law)
- Can transparency offset the negative effects of conflicts of interest?
Project head: James Tremewan
A further project was approved for the special focus area “Migration, the labor market, and economic growth”:
- Social and economic advantages of migration in Europe
Project head: Alyssa Schneebaum (Institute for Macroeconomics)