Ass.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Verena Radinger-Peer
holds a Tenure Track Professorship for “Sustainable Landscape Development” at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), Institute for Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning (ILEN). Her research focuses on regional sustainability transformations, whereby she scrutinizes in particular the role and impact of universities from an institutional theoretical and agency perspective. Since more than ten years her research interest also includes transdisciplinary research, knowledge integration and processes of social learning in particular in the context of land use and land use conflicts, governance, climate change, agriculture, settlement, and biodiversity. Verena Radinger-Peer is the PI of the UNIRE project and especially responsible for WP0 project management as well as WP4 scenario process.
Dr. Mag. Gesa Pflitsch (M.Sc.)
received her PhD in Economic Geography from the University of Marburg (Germany) in 2019. Since then, her research has mainly focused on sustainability transformations at the urban and regional level. Gesa has combined approaches from evolutionary economic geography, neo-institutional theory and sustainability transitions research to investigate, among others, the role of universities and civil society actors in such processes. In parallel, she has worked on the development of new methodological approaches to visually analyze regional transformation processes. In the UNIRE project, she will be mainly responsible for desk research in WP1 and data analysis and processing in WP3.
Dipl-Ing. Ines Hinterleitner
holds a Master of Science from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU). In her master thesis, she focused on transformative learning process in higher education. In the UNIRE project, she is working as a PhD researcher as she is interested in the role universities (can) play in the sustainability transformation of society. Ines Hinterleitner is responsible for WP2 empirical data gathering.
Advisory Board
The role of the Advisory Board in the UNIRE project includes the following aspects and activities:
- feedback on the content of the literature review and case study selection;
- feedback on different methodological steps;
- exchange in the context of publications;
- considerations on joint publications;
- networking opportunities;
- possibilities for disseminating the research results.
Univ. Prof. Marianne Penker
Institute for Sustainable Economic Development, BOKU Vienna
leading expert in the fields of transdisciplinary research, regional sustainability transition processes, regional governance as well as mixed methods research
Prof. Dr. Daniel Schiller
Professor of Economic and Social Geography, University of Greifswald
expert on knowledge- and innovation-based regional development, sustainable development and the role of universities therein, as well as investigations of global transformation processes
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sabine Sedlacek
Head of the School of Sustainability, Governance, and Methods, Modul University Vienna
expert in regional development and policy, environmental economics, governance and transitions to sustainability in different spatial contexts, as well as on the role of universities in these various contexts
Prof. Markku Sotarauta
Professor for Regional Development Studies at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University
expert in city and regional development, leadership, institutional agency, and innovation policy
