How can we stem the flood of returns from online shopping? What renewable energy sources are the best choices for a post-1.5-degree world? What share of the labor market did women in Vienna really occupy in the past? The WU Projects selected for funding this year cover a lot of ground, reflecting the great diversity of WU’s research.

WU Projects is WU Vienna’s in-house funding program, open to all WU researchers, starting at the postdoctoral level. Every year, grants of up to €25,000 are awarded to promising medium-sized research projects.

This year, we saw particularly strong interest in the program: WU researchers submitted a total of 38 project proposals, significantly more than in previous years. A seven-member international jury of experts from the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) reviewed and ranked the submissions. On this basis, the Board of the WU Anniversary Foundation selected eight research projects for funding.

WU Projects 2024: an overview

Siham El Kihal from the Institute for AI in Marketing Analytics left the academic jury impressed with her project “Toward the Point of No Return: Breaking the Cycle of Multi-Item Ordering Habits.” In this project, she deals with the economic and ecological consequences of the increasing volume of online shopping returns.

In the FUTUREPROOF project, Stefan Giljum (Institute for Ecological Economics) seeks to identify the renewable power generation technologies that are most resilient to the consequences of climate change. In this project, he plans to apply a new model for energy supply chains.

Simon Heß from the Department of Economics won a grant for his project “Kinship Networks, Local Elections, and Female Representation” looking at kinship networks in Nepalese politics – and specifically at how kinship networks influence the success of candidates in regional elections in Nepal.

“Invisible Women” is the title of Esther Arenas Arroyo’s (Department of Economics) project, where she uses various data sets to carry out a detailed calculation of the employment rate of women in Vienna in the period from 1850 to 1930 to gain new insights into women’s historical participation in the labor market.

Nela Mrchkovska from the Institute for Public Management and Governance received funding for her research project entitled “Moral Tides in Reason and Transcendence: Investigating Climate Change Discourse in Religious Sermons.” She uses data scraping and innovative text analysis methods to investigate climate discourse in a religious context.

“Discursive Foundations of Responsible and Sustainable Innovation - Co-developing a Research Agenda” is a project by André Martinuzzi (Institute for Managing Sustainability), aiming to develop a research agenda for responsible and sustainable innovation together with leading international researchers.

Martin Bruckner (Institute for Ecological Economics) receives funding for his project entitled “FISHIO – Understanding International Supply Chains of Aquatic Products” in which he analyzes international fish and seafood supply chains, from catch or aquaculture all the way to the end consumers.

“On the Progress of Nations: Patterns and Driving Forces Behind Global (Un)sustainable Development” – this is the title of the grant-winning project by Markus Hametner (Institute for Managing Sustainability), in which he examines the academic discourse surrounding the problem of measuring sustainability performance – especially with regard to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.