Gerald J. Pruckner, a professor of Health Economics at the JKU’s Institute of Economics, earned his doctorate and post-doctorate degrees in Linz. He spent a research year at the University of California, Berkeley, and spent three months conducting research at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He was professor of Finance at the University of Innsbruck between 2002 and 2006.

Prof. Pruckner’s main areas of research include health economics and behavioral economics. He conducts primarily empirical-oriented research focusing on the Austrian healthcare system as well as on issues related to preventive healthcare. He served as deputy director of the National Research Network "Labor Economics and the Welfare State" between 2008 and 2015, and between October 2014 and September 2021, he served as co-director of the JKU-based Christian Doppler Research Laboratory "Aging, Health, and the Labor Market". He is a member of the health economics committee for the Verein für Socialpolitik, and a board member of the Austrian Health Economics Association. Prof. Pruckner's research papers have been published in renowned international journals.

The new dean remarked: "As Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Business & Economics at the JKU, I aim to boost the Faculty’s profile and draw more attention to our faculty members’ diverse and outstanding research accomplishments. In terms of internal relations, I would like to liaison between the individual departments and support their multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration efforts. We will also continue to consequently pursue the initiated approach toward a data-driven analysis of transformation processes in both a business and social context."