The LIFT_C Call - Networking at the JKU

Given the countless challenges and crises society is facing, the Linz Institute for Transformative Change (LIFT_C) intends to encourage and foster interdisciplinary collaboration at the JKU and across disciplines by announcing research calls.

At present, LIFT_C calls will be announced once a year (in fall/winter) through to 2026. Click here, opens in new window to learn more about current calls.

An Overview of Our Labs and Junior Researcher Groups

The Metaverse Lab

The digital space, including its connections to the analog world, could be considered a "metaverse", meaning a space beyond ("meta") the (physical) universe. Current manifestations, such as social media, AI-driven chatbots and cyber currencies, have no (state) borders. As a result, the state's sovereignty and its power to legislate is very limited. The Silicon Valley tech giants in particular have de facto sovereignty and the consequences for the constitutional state and its free democratic basic order are serious. Under the leadership of Prof. Meinhard Lukas, the Metaverse Lab intends to explore transformation in and through the metaverse by taking a radical, interdisciplinary approach that gets to the root of the problem.

If you have any questions about the Metaverse Lab, please send an e-mail to: meinhard.lukas(at)jku.at 

The Sustainable Transformation Management Lab 

Led by Thomas Gegenhuber, the professor for "Managing Socio-Technical Transitions", the Sustainable Transformation Management Lab, opens in new window focuses its activities at the crossroads of organization, society, and new digital technologies. We conduct research and generate momentum to support transformation processes that focus on the UN's sustainability goals.

The Socio-Ecological Transformation Research Group

The "Socio-Ecological Transformation" (SET) Research Group is a transdisciplinary research program at the crossroads of political economy, sociology, political science, and environmental and sustainability sciences analyzing the multiple challenges posed by socio-ecological transformation and intent on creating constructive solutions and scenarios. Given the escalating multi-crisis phenomena, meaning the way social, economic, political, and ecological crises interact, the question is no longer whether or not there will be socio-ecological transformation, but how. Overstepping our planet's limits - such as the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, and ocean pollution - calls for far-reaching reforms in manufacturing, consumerism, and modern lifestyles. At the same time, however, there are enormous socio-economic disparities and inequalities in healthcare, education, political inclusion, and equality at both national and international level. The SET Research Group aims to explore the preconditions and various socio-economic scenarios needed to support sustainable socio-ecological transformation.

The SET-Lab will focus specifically on the role of currently dominant economic attitudes towards this process, examining the extent to which mainstream economic thinking - which analyzes economic activity largely in isolation from social and ecological implications - constitutes an additional (and central) obstacle to bringing about the far-reaching transformation we need, and how alternative socio-economic approaches can positively contribute to socio-ecological transformation by integrating the economy into society and ecology. The impact of economic theory is localized and discussed not only in the realm of intellectual output and knowledge transfer, but also in the area of political reform debates and public discourse. We are firmly committed to science's sense of social responsibility, relying on a wide range of partnerships in science and civil society.

The Impact Lab

Launched at the JKU in 2021 in partnership with the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft's Open Innovation in Science Center, the Impact Lab addresses the public and their needs under the heading "The Future We Want!", encouraging discourse on future technological trends and integrated research processes. As part of LIFT_C, the project is now continuing and evolving as an Impact Lab, aiming to create social and scientific value by conducting transdisciplinary research and pursuing innovation activities as well as offering skills training to apply open innovation methods in science.