Integrating Perspectives
Ready for a New Challenge in Your Master’s?
You have spent years mastering your field of study. You know its tools, its language, its lens. But some questions outgrow a single perspective. Climate change, environmental challenges, and social transformation don’t sit neatly in silos - they demand collaboration and the courage to think across boundaries. This module is your space to do exactly that: bring your expertise, combine it with others, and turn diverse inputs into clear, usable outcomes. You’ll tackle real issues, see how different disciplines approach complexity, and learn the craft of synthesis - turning variety into direction. This isn’t just another set of classes. It’s your chance to stand out as the person who moves work forward when others stall.
Are you ready to step beyond your comfort zone and become the connector who makes progress possible?
Your discipline is your strength. Thinking beyond is your superpower.
Your expertise is your foundation. Combine it with the ability to think across disciplines, and you unlock something rare: the capacity to build solutions others can’t see yet. Ready to turn knowledge into impact?
In a World of Specialists, Be the Connector
Specialization builds depth; connection creates change. In this module, you’ll learn to weave methods, data, and viewpoints into something coherent and actionable. As a connector, you’ll link insights from different fields of study - among others from ‘Science and Technology Studies’, ‘Environmental Systems’, ‘Political Science’, and 'Ecology and Ecosystems' - to design research that matters within and beyond academia. You’ll practice asking sharp questions, translating between disciplines, and turning differences into strengths. This is the craft of facilitation, framing, and synthesis - turning many threads into one clear path forward. You’ll learn to make ambiguity useful, align mixed evidence into shared steps, and guide teams through complexity with confidence. These are skills every organization needs - and few truly master.
Teamwork Makes the Stream Work
Here, teamwork isn’t a buzzword - it’s the engine. Every student brings a distinct perspective; when those ideas flow together, complexity becomes navigable. You’ll work in small, diverse teams where disciplinary rigor meets cross‑disciplinary creativity. Together, you’ll navigate differences, combine strengths, and shape one coherent plan. Think momentum: like a stream gathering force, you’ll create new paths as you move. You’ll experience real collaboration - setting priorities, framing questions, and building synergy instead of compromise. By the end, you won’t just have a project - you’ll have a team experience that mirrors professional practice. Are you ready to make collaboration your forte?
Real‑World Partner, Real‑World Theme
We are partnering with Vienna Water, Municipal Department 31, for the pilot semester. With Water as the overarching theme, you will engage a leading urban system in practice, from source protection and drinking water quality to distribution, resilience and equity. This collaboration grounds the module in real world challenges and adds meaningful feedback at key milestones. You will frame questions that matter, co create a research plan, and deliver a stakeholder ready report and presentation tailored to MA 31. Along the way, you will build connector skills employers value, translating across disciplines, aligning evidence and turning complexity into clear next steps.
Why Connectors Stand Out
-
Work with challenges from the real world
Bring your knowledge to real problems and make an impact. A societal partner sets an overarching theme; you and your team design actionable research plans, communicate trade‑offs, and present clear next steps stakeholders can use - whether it’s urban air quality or alpine resilience.
Ian Ehm -
Create integrated solutions for complex issues
Climate, environmental, and sustainability issues are not just scientific - they’re social, political, and economic. This module helps you connect the dots: pair your disciplinary strength with the ability to think beyond, frame questions that invite collaboration, and build answers that make sense in the lab, the seminar, and city hall.
derknopfdruecker.com -
Boost your career opportunities
Employers look for people who can collaborate, communicate, and synthesize. This module strengthens exactly that - through teamwork, stakeholder engagement, and tangible outputs. You’ll leave with credible experience, a portfolio of deliverables, and a story that shows you connect your field to others to solve complex problems.
Sebastian Philipp
-
derknopfdruecker.comThe individual expertise you’ve gained at the University of Vienna is powerful - but when woven with other perspectives, it becomes transformative. Join us to learn how to connect perspectives and make a real difference together.
Timo Bühler, Coordinator of the module and lecturer -
Interdisciplinary research and teaching are crucial for understanding the socio-ecological crisis. This exciting new module invites students to explore diverse perspectives, apply insights, and engage in dialogue with societal actors.
Valerie Lenikus, Lecturer -
CeMESS\Ludwig SchedlUnderstanding environmental processes is essential, but real impact emerges when chemical knowledge meets other perspectives. This module empowers students to turn scientific insight into collective action for a sustainable future.
Thorsten Hüffer, Lecturer -
CeMESS/Ludwig SchedlThis course places students at the center of real-world environmental challenges. It offers T-shaped education by combining disciplinary depth with interdisciplinary methods, exchange across sciences, and engagement with societal partners.
Thilo Hofmann, Professor of Environmental Geosciences -
In a world of increasing complexity, challanges can no longer be solved in isolation. In water management and drinking water supply, technology, ecology, climate and society interlock. Only interdisciplinary approaches ensure sustainable water supply.
Philipp Proksch, MA31 - Vienna Water
Your Roadmap to Becoming a Connector
Integrating Perspectives is a 10‑ECTS module in English: a VU paired with a KU that build on each other. In the VU, you’ll explore how different fields approach socio‑environmental questions - their methods, assumptions, and ways of knowing. That’s where you gain the vocabulary to speak across boundaries. In the KU, you’ll put this into practice: working in small teams to co‑create a research plan, a stakeholder‑ready report, and a final presentation. You’ll use open workspaces, peer cafés, and trial presentations before the final with our societal partner. Regular check‑ins keep you on track, and the limited size of 25 students ensures depth and focus. This is a dynamic learning journey where theory meets practice - and where you learn to lead collaboration, not just join it.
-
I want to complete the full module (10 ECTS)
To complete the full module, you must only take the KU. The KU requires a short application and parallel registration on u:find. Your VU assessment will be integrated into the KU’s joint grading.
How to proceed
- Prepare your application. Audio recording, max. 4 minutes in English. Acceptable audio formats: MP3, M4A or WAV. Address the following questions:
- Why you’re interested in the module
- What your experiences are working in multidisciplinary teams
- What you expect from multidisciplinary collaboration
- How the module supports your personal development
- Rename the audio file to include only your matriculation number, then upload it here between 2 and 22 February:
https://ucloud.univie.ac.at/index.php/s/qJHLxkw3Q968fiH
(All records will be irretrievably deleted immediately after the selection decision!) - Register for the KU on u:find during the same timeframe:
Register for the KU (full module) - Selection and notification:
- The teaching team (Timo Bühler, Valerie Lenikus, Thorsten Hüffer) selects a balanced cohort across participating Master programmes.
- You will receive confirmation or a rejection until 24 February.
(Please note: If you register for both the VU and the KU and are accepted onto the KU, your VU registration will be cancelled, as the VU content and units are included in the KU programme. However, if you are not accepted into the KU, you can still participate in the VU.)
- Prepare your application. Audio recording, max. 4 minutes in English. Acceptable audio formats: MP3, M4A or WAV. Address the following questions:
-
I only want to complete the VU (2 ECTS)
If you only want to participate in the VU just register on u:find for the VU.
How to proceed
- Register between 2 and 22 February for the VU on u:find:
Register for VU only - Attend the VU sessions and complete the VU assessments.
- Register between 2 and 22 February for the VU on u:find:
FAQs
For summer term 2026, the full 10‑ECTS module (VU + KU with joint grading) is open to Master’s students at the University of Vienna in Environmental Systems, Science - Technology - Society, Ecology and Ecosystems and Political Science. The module is taught in English.
If you are enrolled in one of the following Master's programmes at the University of Vienna, you can register for the VU as a standalone course: Meteorology and Climate Science, or Geographies of Global Change and Sustainability Transformations. If you are studying another Master's programme and would like to join the VU, please contact us to discuss the details and your SPL, and to clarify the attribution of ECTS credits.
The KU (and thus the full module) is restricted to 25 students in the pilot phase. A total of 120 students can participate in the VU.
Looking ahead, the concept is designed to include additional Master's programmes in the future.
The module comprises 10 ECTS with joint grading: a 2‑ECTS VU that builds your interdisciplinary foundations, followed by an 8‑ECTS KU where you apply them. It runs in the summer semester 2026. An overarching theme ties the pilot together: Water, developed with our societal partner, the City of Vienna. If you want to complete the full 10‑ECTS module, you only apply/register for the KU (details can be found here); your VU assessment is integrated into the KU’s joint grading, so there is no separate VU registration for full‑module students. If you only want the VU, you can register for it as a standalone and receive a separate grade. The KU is capped in the pilot to ensure depth and supervision (limit to 25 students). A short application is required for the KU; details and deadlines can be found below or in u:find.
You will work with your team on the semester theme Water in partnership with Vienna Water, Municipal Department 31 (MA 31). Across the module, you will create three connected outputs that drive your learning and mark progress: a team research plan that frames clear questions, selects suitable methods, and shows how different disciplines fit together; a stakeholder-ready report and presentation tailored to the societal partner; and an individual reflection on interdisciplinary teamwork and methods. These are not just for grading - they are milestones aligned with the core outcomes of the module: collaborating across fields, choosing and combining methods for real problems, and communicating results in ways partners can use. You will refine your work through open workspaces, peer review in a world café, and a trial presentation, and conclude with a final presentation to the societal partner, ensuring your outputs benefit from structured feedback at each step.
While implementation is not part of the module and cannot be guaranteed, your research plan, report, and presentation are designed to give the societal partner a structured overview of options and trade‑offs; they may inform internal discussions or provide a starting point for possible next steps, at the partner’s discretion. You will present your work and receive feedback, which helps align academic ideas with real‑world needs without promising uptake. For you as a student, the clearest impact is skills: translating disciplinary insights for non‑academic audiences and collaborating across fields on a concrete theme.
You’ll be supported throughout by the teaching team - Timo Bühler, Valerie Lenikus, and Thorsten Hüffer - through focused inputs on interdisciplinarity and methods, structured check‑ins, and interactive formats designed for continuous feedback. The module builds in multiple touchpoints to refine your work: open workspaces with optional check‑ins, a trial presentation with detailed feedback, and a final presentation with responses from lecturers and the societal partner. In addition, a tutor will support teams and help coordinate feedback flow and momentum.
The following list shows all VU & KU units of the ‘Integrating Perspectives’ module:
- 4.3., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 5.3., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 11.3., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 18.3., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 19.3., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 19.3., 14:00 - 16:00, Excursion to the danube island with Vienna Water (KU)
- 25.3., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 26.3., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 15.4., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 16.4., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 22.4., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 23.4., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 30.4., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 6.5., 15:00 - 17:00, HS B @ UniCampus (VU + KU)
- 7.5., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 21.5., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 28.5., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 11.6., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 18.6., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 25.6., 9:45 - 13:00, Prominentenzimmer @ Main building (KU)
- 29.6., 15:00 - 17:00, Cermonial Hall @ Main building (VU + KU)
Yes, both the VU and the KU are 'prüfungsimmanent' courses, which makes attendance necessary. If you are taking the KU, you also have to attend all VU units.
Registration is possible via u:find. The information on how to take part in this module can be found here.
Yes, if you want to take the full module. For taking part in the VU only an application is not necessary. The information on how to apply can be found here.
Due to the participant cap and the need to ensure a balance of disciplinary backgrounds, applications for the KU are necessary.
If you register for both the VU and the KU and are accepted onto the KU, your VU registration will be cancelled, as the VU content and units are included in the KU programme. However, if you are not accepted into the KU, you can still participate in the VU.
Open Questions?
-
Reach out to the module coordinator:
Timo Bühler, MA
timo.buehler(at)univie.ac.at
derknopfdruecker.com