Tone Smith is a researcher in the fields of ecological economics, social-ecological transformation, institutional change and degrowth. She defended her doctoral thesis on The Role of Numbers in Environmental Politics in 2017, a topic chosen after working many years at Statistics Norway and with the OECD in the field of sustainability indicators, environmental performance assessment, environmental-economic accounting and environmental statistics. Her research addresses questions at the interface of the natural and social sciences, and also issues related to scientific knowledge and philosophy of science. The latter has led to the setting up of the the Vienna Critical Realist Workshop series, of which she is a co-organiser.

After finishing her doctoral studies, Smith worked for the Austrian Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism during the Austrian Presidency of the European Council. She worked on policy issues related to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), preparing position papers and acting as a negotiator on behalf of the European Union Member States during the Austrian Presidency period in 2018. She was also the Deputy Chair of the Working Party for International Environmental Issues (Biodiversity) at the European Council.

She has also been teaching economics at various Austrian universities (FH Krems, FH Bfi Wien) besides the WU. Currently she is lecturing at OsloMet (Norway). 

Since 2019, Smith works freelance as a writer, speaker and independent scholar. She is also Vice-President of the Europeans Society for Ecological Economics, and active in both Degrowth Norway and the Rethinking Economics network. In 2020, she was part of the organisation team & advisory board of Degrowth Vienna 2020 - online conference co-hosted by the MLGD (WU). Currently, she is part of the local organising committee for the 2025 ISEE-Degrowth Conference to take place in Oslo in June 2025.

PhD. 2017; Supervisor: Dr. Andreas Novy

Download information sheet and publications.

Latest working paper: A Short Introduction to Ecological Economics.