FSP 2: Research projects

Funding body: Ministry of Social Affairs 
Duration: October 2024-July 2026
Project management: Markus Hadler, Beate Klösch and Klaus Wegleitner

Project description: Over the next few years, the Elisabethinen Hospital in Graz will expand palliative care in the former VinziDorf Hospice, a hospice facility for homeless people, as part of the "Himmelshafen" project. An additional care programme is intended to improve the living conditions of structurally vulnerable groups who, for example, are unable to find adequate support due to addiction or mental health problems. Furthermore, intensive public relations work is intended to raise awareness of the realities of homeless people's lives among the general population and ensure the sustainability of the centre through donations, sponsorships and volunteers. The project is intended to serve as a model for other organisations and provide suggestions for the conceptual expansion of graduated hospice and palliative care in Austria. The Centre for Social Research is carrying out the accompanying impact evaluation.

Funding body: Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research
Duration: 1 March 2023-29 February 2027
Project management: Markus Hadler and Anja Eder
Project partners: Johann Bacher and Dimitri Prandner (JKU Linz), Wolfgang Aschauer (Paris-Lodron University Salzburg), Nadia Steiber (University of Vienna), Caroline Berghammer (ÖAW)

Project description: Since 1986, the Social Survey Austria (SSÖ), in conjunction with the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), has been investigating social change, i.e. changes in the social structure, behaviour and attitudes of the Austrian population over time and in a global comparison. ISSP/SSÖ is one of the longest-running general population surveys.
In Austria, ISSP/SSÖ is based on many years of intensive co-operation between social scientists at the universities of Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Vienna. The data collected is made available to the social science community in Austria and internationally on an open access basis. 
The project ensures the collection of data for the survey modules on the topics of "Digital Societies", "National Identity and Citizenship", "Work Orientations" and "Role of Government" in Austria. These survey modules provide important findings on highly topical issues that are of interest to both researchers and the general public.

Funding body: University of Graz & Graz University of Technology
Duration: 01.06.2020-31.08.2026
Project management: Markus Hadler (Institute of Sociology, University of Graz) and Elisabeth Lex (Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science, Graz University of Technology)

Project description: This interdisciplinary research project is the result of the Route 63 cooperation between the University of Graz and Graz University of Technology and is run jointly by the Department of Sociology (KFU) and Interactive Systems and Data Science (TUG). The focus is on analysing the polarisation of public opinion on various topics. This is currently being analysed with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, with a particular focus on the acceptance of political measures, general concern among the population and attitudes towards the origin of the virus and reasons for climate change. An innovative combination of data and methods will be used: on the one hand, data will be collected and statistically analysed using traditional social science surveys. On the other hand, Twitter analyses of the public tweets of the survey participants are carried out from both a qualitative social science perspective and a computer science perspective.

Funding body: Vienna Chamber of Labour
Duration: May 2024 - March 2025
Project management: Bettina Stadler
Project staff: Moritz Koch (Bachelor of Sociology student)

Project description: The question of how and what work should be performed in the future is currently being discussed primarily in connection with the shortage of (skilled) labour. Although the number of unemployed is currently rising again, many sectors oft the Austrian labour market continue to experience a shortage of (skilled) workers. An end to this shortage is not in sight.
Our research project uses quantitative data to examine which sectors of the labour market gained importance over the past two decades, that is where more people are employed and more working hours are being proformed, and which occupations and segments have declined in importance. These findings will be contrasted with analyses of data on job vacancies from a company survey.
A central focus of the project is to explore the relationship between labour market shifts, job quality, and potential tendencies toward labour market polarisation. International studies have pointed to increasing labour market polarisation, i.e. the dominance of precarious, low-skilled jobs on the one hand and highly qualified, well-equipped jobs on the other hand.

Funded by: EU (European Commission)
Duration: 2019-2024
Project management for the University of Graz site: Markus Hadler

Project description: The Horizon 2020 project TORERO (started in May 2017) was financially supported by the European Commission to demonstrate a cost-, resource- and energy-efficient technology concept for the production of bioethanol from a fully integrated wood waste feedstock in a functioning steel mill in the following form: - Wood waste is converted into biocoal by torrefaction - Biocoal replaces fossil coal powder in a steel mill blast furnace - Carbon monoxide in blast furnace off-gases is microbially fermented into bioethanol - Material and energy loops of the process are largely closed.

This project creates a value chain for wood waste for which there are currently no attractive applications. The Torero project aims to demonstrate a competitive process for bioethanol production from non-food raw materials. Compared to the current production based on cellulose bioethanol, the Torero innovation is much more efficient. Torero and its sister project Steelanol are the only H2020 projects that demonstrate a biofuel production process integrated into an existing, fully operational large-scale industrial plant. All other H2020 solutions will need to be built from scratch if they are ever to reach full industrial scale. Torero is an add-on technology that can be used to upgrade existing plants in the steel sector - an industry that is actively looking for technological solutions to make its production processes more sustainable. The consortium consists of the entire value chain, the industrial companies ArcelorMittal and Van Gansewinkel, the two expert research organisations Joanneum Research and Chalmers Technical University and the torrefaction technology provider Torr-Coal. The University of Graz (Department of Sociology) is undertaking dissemination work and is working on the social impact study.

Link

Funding body: Ministry of Science
Duration: 2020-2023, together with the Universities of Vienna, Linz and Salzburg
Head of the Graz site: Markus Hadler and Anja Eder

Project description: Digitalisation is a multifaceted phenomenon that impacts all aspects of society.  For the social sciences, these changes require a rethinking of instruments and practices from the paper age. The further development of digital data collection and analysis methods for analysing, reflecting on and shaping social and political transformation processes is therefore at the centre of the future orientation of social science university teaching and research. The advent of new digital data formats requires the establishment of new research ethics and data protection standards, balancing systemic and individual benefits on the one hand and risks on the other. The project's central focus is on developing a comprehensive, legally and ethically sound, and reflecting use of digital research data and analysis methods by and for the social sciences, taking into account the different disciplinary cultures.

Funding organisation: Austrian National Bank
Duration: 2019-2021
Head: Markus Hadler

Project description: In the Paris Climate Agreement, Austria has committed itself to dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. Currently, such emissions are mainly recorded at national level in research and discussed on the basis of average values per capita. Such an approximation does not allow reliable statements to be made about the role of different social groups in relation to climate change and the emissions balance. Existing surveys of environmental behaviour, on the other hand, allow statements to be made about the connection between behaviour, attitudes and the willingness to change, but have not been developed for the greenhouse gas-relevant behaviour of the population. This project aims to close this gap, survey the CO2-relevant behaviour of the Austrian population, test the factors influencing the various behaviours and thus contribute to achieving the Paris target.

Client: BMBWF
Duration: 04/2020-12/2021
Project team: Otto Bodi-Fernandez, Manfred Herzog, Lorenz Makula
Link: COVID-19 Dataverse

Project description: AUSSDA has launched the COSSDA - COVID-19 Social Science Data Hub Austria project with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF). It provides the research community with a basis for empirical analyses on COVID-19 topics in Austria and beyond.
COSSDA builds on the predecessor project COVID-19 Data Fast Track Publishing and ensures that the reusable research data of social science COVID studies in Austria are collected in one place, archived sustainably and made available as soon as possible according to the FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

Commissioned by: BMBWF
Duration: 07/2020-03/2021
Link: COVID-19 Dataverse
Project team: Otto Bodi-Fernandez, Manfred Herzog, Lorenz Makula

Project description: In the context of the global pandemic, researchers worldwide are collaborating to collectively develop solutions by sharing their survey data with their colleagues. The research also focuses on the social and economic impact of the pandemic. Since the beginning of the crisis, a large amount of social science data has been collected in Austria that deals with both the spread of the virus and its social consequences. In order to make this highly topical data available to the scientific community as quickly as possible, AUSSDA has launched the COVID-19 Data Fast Track Publishing project with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF). This means that COVID-19 data can be made available at AUSSDA in a fast-track process.

The project is being coordinated and implemented by the AUSSDA centre at the University of Graz, which is based at the Institute of Sociology.

Funding: Higher Education Area Structural Funds (HRSM) Project of the Federal Ministry of Science and Research
Duration: 2017-2021
Staff at the Graz site: Franz Höllinger and Markus Hadler (lead), Christoph Glatz, Anja Eder and Otto Bodi

Project description: SoWiDat-Austria is a cooperation project of the sociology institutes of the Universities of Graz (lead), Linz, Salzburg and Vienna for the collection and utilisation of social long-term observation data in Austria. The aims of the project are the conception and implementation of the Social Survey Austria (SSÖ) in conjunction with the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the archiving of the data in the Austrian Social Science Data Archive AUSSDA, the analysis of the data and the production of joint publications, as well as accompanying methodological research.

Funding organisation: FWF
Duration: 10/2013-9/2016
Project team: Franz Höllinger, Sabine Haring-Mosbacher, Anja Eder (Eva-Maria Griesbacher, Maria Maierhofer, Bernd Promitzer and Katharina Thünauer)

Project description: Contemporary family farms are confronted with two major challenges: As agricultural prices are very low due to technological developments and the globalisation of markets, many farmers can only secure their material existence if they develop new production and marketing concepts. At the same time, it is necessary for farmers to find new models of family life that harmonise the requirements of family farming with postmodern ideas and ideals of partnership, family and leisure. This research project will therefore investigate how farmers perceive and evaluate their business and family situation and what ideas and strategies they develop in order to achieve a good quality of life in both economic and private terms.

Funding organisation: Jubilee Fund of the National Bank
Duration: 2010-2011
Project team: Max Haller (head), Bernadette Müller

Funded by: Science Department of the Provincial Government of Styria
Duration: 2010-2011
Project team: Max Haller (head), Bernadette Müller

Funding organisation: FWF
Duration: 2007-2010
Project team: Franz Höllinger (head), Thomas Tripold, Gabriele Diesel, Michael Longhino

Funding organisation: FWF
Duration: 2007-2008
Project management: Max Haller

Funding organisation: FWF
Duration: 2004-2006
Project team: Max Haller (head), Bernadette Müller, Regina Ressler