Our Stories

Ulrike Felt, researcher at the Department of Science and Technology Studies and member of the ECH of the University of Vienna, has been awarded the Friedrich Schiedle Prize for Social Sciences and Technology by the Technical University of Munich together with Harvard Professor Martha Minow. Urs Gasser, Dean of the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, emphasised Felts “intellectual brilliance joined with moral courage and leadership” in his address.

We are proud to congratulate our members Franz Essl, Lucia Fuchslueger, Andreas Richter, Mathew White, and our Co-Director Thilo Hofmann for making the list of the Most Cited Researchers 2025 together with six other researchers at the University of Vienna. Having the University of Vienna and its Environment and Climate Research Hub represented in this way shows the excellent scientific work conducted by our researchers.

When science speaks, society benefits. Climate research is too urgent and complex to remain within academia. For the ECH, silence is not an option. This is why the ECH reaches out to society to communicate complex environmental research.

The burning of fossil fuels, megafires and land-use changes drive CO2 levels up. How will that affect the Amazon? Will the elevated carbon fertilise the forest, boosting leaves and roots so that they will store more CO2? Or will the nutrient-deficient soils nullify the fertilisation effect that works so well in glasshouses? A spectacular international project is about to find out - and ECH is on board.

Governments promised a green transition – yet emissions keep rising. New research from ECH members Ulrich Brand, Alina Brad, and Etienne Schneider in 'Nature Climate Change' reveals why the ‘decarbonisation state’ hits structural limits - and how a true transformation might redefine prosperity, justice, and the role of the state itself.

We congratulate Jan André Koch, researcher at the Department of Marketing and International Business at the University of Vienna and ECH member, on receiving funding from the City of Vienna’s Hochschuljubiläumsfonds for his project “Lost in consumption – Exploring the social and psychological barriers to understand why reduced consumption seems to be no option.” The project links sustainability, psychology, and marketing, contributing to interdisciplinary environment and climate research.