Our Stories

The list of the world’s most cited researchers 2024 this year includes seven scientists from the University of Vienna and among them: ECH members Franz Essl, Andreas Richter and Mathew White. This recognition highlights the international relevance of their research work, which provides groundbreaking insights for the protection of biodiversity, ecosystem research and human health.

This year’s ECH Research Frontiers Workshop focused on unexpected interactions between research fields. In the first week of October, the ECH-team and over 30 of the Hub’s members spent two days learning about a variety of unexpected research outcomes from a wide range of topics and developing new – and often unexpected – collaborations on emerging questions.

European researchers are creating an online tool that maps the entire ocean. Will it lead to more science-based diplomatic negotiations or just perpetuate existing problems? A political science perspective.

Literature cannot stop climate change, says ECH Member Eva Horn, a literary and cultural studies scholar at the University of Vienna. Yet, it can teach us much about how climate has always shaped human perception. We talked to her about insights from a humanities perspective.

The ocean stores many times more carbon than the atmosphere, yet many of the mechanisms behind its carbon cycles are not yet fully understood. For over three decades, Gerhard Herndl from the University of Vienna has been studying the microbial life in the deep sea and how it can help to explain where the carbon goes and how this influences the climate.

Science has shown that a global approach is needed to stop plastic pollution. An international team, including environmental psychologist Sabine Pahl from the University of Vienna, sees the upcoming UN negotiations in South Korea (Nov 2024) as a historic chance for joint action. Their recent review in Science stresses the urgency of a global treaty to curb plastic pollution.