David’s interest in real-world economic issues developed as a teenager when he came across the work of Positive Money, a non-profit organisation working to reform money and banking. He went on to study Economics, Psychology, and Political Science at McGill University in Montreal, where he engaged with Post Keynesian and Ecological Economics, and founded a student group devoted to promoting pluralism in Economics education. His interest in heterodox economics, aimed at understanding and tackling the biggest challenges of our time, led him to the SEEP master’s. Throughout his time in the program, David took the opportunity to broaden his knowledge of social and environmental issues, acquire new skills including qualitative research methods and agent-based modelling, and develop relationships with inspiring professors, young academics and fellow students. Following the first year of his master’s, David secured his dream job as an Economist at Positive Money, the organisation that first sparked his interest in economic issues. David worked part-time in his new role while finishing his SEEP courses. He now leads Positive Money’s research program, and his work on green central banking and financial supervision has been covered in the media in over a dozen countries across the globe. David’s professional role allows him to continue learning every day, researching issues close to this heart while contributing to campaigns and advocacy efforts calling for an economy that serves people and planet. His experience in the SEEP master’s continues to shape his approach to economic and policy analysis today.

SEEP was key to my development as an economist and helped me land my dream job working to reform the monetary and financial system!

While writing my thesis on social housing for my bachelor’s degree in Sociology, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of economics and learn how global dynamics affect policymaking at the local level. The SEEP program, with its international and diverse student body and holistic approach to studying the economy, offered me to do so. During my studies, I was a teaching assistant for courses on International Institutions, Governance and Policy Evaluation and Environmental Change and Policy. While finalizing my master’s thesis on a postcapitalist organization of work, I joined the Research Institute for Urban Management and Governance and the Institute for Law and Governance, both at WU: There I was part of the team editing and writing the APCC Special Report 22 on “Structural conditions for climate friendly living”, which addresses Austria’s challenges and opportunities in reaching the goal of the Paris Agreement. Today, I work at the labour market department of the Austrian Chamber of Labour (AK), which represents workers’ interests before Austrian institutions. Next to dealing with everyday political issues concerning Austria’s labour market, I focus on how progressive labour market policies can contribute to tackling the climate crisis. Additionally, I am teaching a class on the history of economic thought and its relevance for contextualizing today’s climate crisis at the University of Graz.

SEEP has shaped me most in my take on science: All schools of economic thought are normative – it’s just that some scholarly fields are more explicit about it than others!

After finishing my bachelors in electronics engineering, I had a tenure as a software developer with a multinational corporation. But I was drawn to the SEEP program by an awareness that social sustainability crisis imperils life on earth as we know it. SEEP expanded my horizons with transdisciplinary training. A rich tapestry of ideas, frameworks, tools, and methods facilitated by faculty and fostered with peer interactions has been quite humbling and transformative. While it is unrealistic to be an expert in every discipline covered in the SEEP program, upon familiarising oneself with a broader ‘landscape’, one can cultivate their own ‘niche’ via specialisations and a master’s thesis. As an example, I was able to develop my own interests with a thesis on the evolution of technologies. Following completion of my studies, I am now working as a researcher at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.

SEEP will expose you to a wide array of possibilities. You can then strive to carve your own niche to make a positive difference!