Striving for Excellence, Embracing Interdisciplinarity

DeCO2 is an HorizonEurope research project, coordinated by the Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy in the Netherlands. It aims to promote a more climate friendly building sector, currently accounting for 40% of energy use and 36% CO2 emissions in Europe. Current practices consume vast raw materials and produce significant waste. Rising material extraction and reduced global circularity exacerbate these issues. DeCO2 aims to close this gap by advancing innovative technologies in building elements, materials, and products. The project seeks to establish strong partnerships across the value chain: targeting developers, policymakers, and the construction industry, DeCO2 aligns with the EU's sustainability goals, emphasizing health, wellbeing, and inclusivity.

In line with the interdisciplinary focus of the project, the University of Graz is represented by the Centre for Sustainable Social Transformation, under the lead of Andrea Jany, and by the Institute of Public Law and Political Science under the lead of Prof. Maria Bertel and Miriam Hofer

FreeAc is an ERASMUS project coordinated by Lisa Heschl at the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy at the University of Graz. FreeAc addresses the critical need of supporting Ukrainian academia amidst the challenges posed by the ongoing international armed conflict. With a focus on mitigating talent loss and brain drain, it aims to develop both short-term relief and long-term strategies for Higher Education. Drawing from successful interventions in prior European conflicts such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, FreeAc harnesses valuable experiences in assisting Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) during and after periods of conflict. The project overarching goal is to integrate Ukrainian HEIs into the European Higher Education Area, thereby ensuring their long-term resilience and fostering a post-war strategic vision for the country's Higher Education system.

Edu4Standards is a HorizonEurope Coordinated and Support Action bringing together 18 partners from all over Europe to strengthen EU expertise in the field of standardization. Standards are essential for efficiently develop the digital, data-driven and green economy, as well as for supporting the EU’s interests in global markets. Nevertheless, the number of the EU’s standardisation experts could benefit from a pool of young professionals. Edu4Standards therefore will specify the skills needed, analyze the (fragmented) teaching landscape and develop an Innovative Teaching Concept on Standardardisation suitable for various study contexts. The REWI Graz team, under the lead of Prof. Staudegger from the Institute of Legal Foundations will identify which values, green and digital skills are necessary for education in standardisation and subsequently ensure that they are addressed in the teaching concept developed by the project.

POPAPOL explores two current challenges to democracy, the rise of political polarization and the decline of traditional forms of political participation. Based on surveys in Austria, Poland and Slovenia, POPAPOL asks if polarization is a predictor of participation, if and how different forms of polarisation affect participation, how different democratic traditions, social groups and levels of democratic consolidation respond to these challenges. Martin Dolezal from the Institute of Public Law and Political Science leads the research at REWI Uni Graz.

Currently, buildings in the EU are still energy-intensive and inefficient. The building sector is responsible for around 40% of final energy consumption and 36% of Co2 emissions. The decarbonisation of the sector plays a key role in achieving the climate targets. Cities and municipalities in urban regions have a special responsibility in energy transition, as they manage a large proportion of the building stock (at least indirectly). The FFG project, led by Prof. Bertel from the Institute of Public Law and Political Science, is investigating the use of artificial intelligence in combination with IoT technologies that place people at the centre as the backbone and enabler of innovative energy services.

Historically, the 'agreement in rem' as a 'contract in rem' was discovered or invented by Savigny in XIX century when rights in rem were transferred. It was based on sources of Roman law and codified in the BGB in 1900. Its history thus only began after the codification of the Austrian Civil Code (in force since 1812). The main point of contention in Austria is around when the 'contract in rem' is concluded: at the same time as the underlying transaction or upon transfer? This question was primarily raised in connection with the treatment of special issues and more or less on the side, but never independently investigated. The FWF project questions not only the point in time at which an 'agreement in rem' is required, but also whether the concept of a 'contract in rem' is compatible with the basic values of Austrian civil law. Prof. Isola (Institute of the Foundations of Law) also investigates to what extent arguments from the Swiss, Dutch and Spanish literature - all countries where 'causal tradition' prevails - can be utilised for the Austrian legal situation.

CarbonNeutralLNG is an HorizonEurope research project that targets the cost-competitive and carbon effective exploitation of carbon sources from biomass in order to replace fossil diesel fuels with renewable ‘electricity enhanced bioLNG’ on a global scale. Low-carbon transportation will increasingly depend on liquid and gaseous energy carriers like Liquefied Natural Gas from biomass. Low-cost renewable energy (electricity and biomass) and reduced process complexity will be the main drivers for reduced marginal costs and increased carbon efficiency of bioLNG synthesis. Electricity enhanced synthesis of energy carriers from biomass increases the yield from a certain amount of forest residues or biowastes by a factor of two. CarbonNeutralLNG targets electricity enhanced conversion of biomass residues into CO/CO2 and subsequently into liquefied bio-methane (bioLNG). The integration of renewable electricity maximizes the biofuel production from a certain amount of biomass resources and simplifies the conversion processes.

Miriam Hofer at the Institute of Public Law and Political Science leads the work package dedicated to the roadmap to replication, focusing in particular on the legal framework and policy optimization for decentralized and transcontinental bioLNG production.

CarbonNeutralSchools is an Erasmus project coordinated at the University of Graz by Oliver Ruppel, the Director of the Clim:Law Centre. It aims to develop an online interactive e-learning course for schools, Higher Education Institutions and vocational schools. The aim is to show schools what can be done to lower carbon emission, based on practical guidelines that can be taken up without previous knowledge on the topic, and on the experience that pioneer schools in the field have al-ready implemented. The result of the project will be developed as a collection of interactive e-learning modules.

Dr. Anderwald 's FWF project at the Institute of Tax and Financial Law analyzes the legal dimension of the creeping consumption orientation of the Austrian tax system. She examines the question of how a consumption-oriented tax system and its enforcement could be legally structured in Austria, considering also ecological effects of a consumption-oriented tax system.

Energy citizenship - the active involvement and empowerment of the people in the energy sector - is a cornerstone to achieve a clean-energy transition and to build a low carbon and resilient future in the European Union within the next decades. Energy communities - non-commercial market actors in the energy sector - can help to achieve this goal once their potential is known and acknowledge by the citizens of the EU. Hence, the overarching objective of EC2 is to scale-up both energy citizenship and energy communities to achieve greater social acceptability and more durable governance arrangements via actionable policy recommendations for policy makers. To this end, we employ a transdisciplinary team of experts to (i) develop a psychological conceptualization to understand what it takes to become an energy citizen, (ii) identify legal and socio-economic market factors that can hinder or promote an emergence of and engagement of citizens in energy communities, (iii) experimentally test and gather quantitative-empirical evidence for these factors, psychological underpinnings, and for the conduciveness of energy citizenship for broader sustainable policy goals, (iv) use insights from the empirical work to foster the co-creation of digital tools with stakeholders to overcome barriers, (v) distill and disseminate the gained knowledge in Energy Citizenship Dialogues and an Academy, in a series of community Open-Days across five countries, in scientific articles, at conferences, in online repositories for durable access, and in briefings to policy makers on local, national and EU-level. In line with the EU's thrust to empower the people in the energy sector, this innovative research will provide valuable and evidence-based understanding. It will illuminate the socioeconomic, psychological and related factors and their interrelations with legal, regulatory and policy aspects to inform practical applications for fostering energy citizenship.

Intuition in criminal proceedings? - On the interdisciplinarity of motives in special preventive decision-making practice - analysis and synthesis is a project sponsored by the Province of Styria (UFO - Unconventional Research) led by Nina Kaiser and carried out together with Ida Leibetseder at ZIK. The project conducted a quantitative and qualitative survey of specialised preventive decision-making practices in criminal proceedings and their interdisciplinary nature. Should I pack an umbrella? Take out insurance? Our lives are full of prognostic decisions that require us to weigh up numerous factors. The criminal justice system must also face such challenges, for example when assessing the likelihood of recidivism and when making appropriate interventions to prevent future offences. The law provides the courts with a way to do this. But what factors are actually taken into account in these decisions? Can legal knowledge and experience provide sufficient material for such important decisions?

The GDHRNet COST Action, which Prof. Oberleitner and the UNI-ETC team have joined, explores the challenges that the online context poses for the protection of human rights. Are international human rights sufficiently detailed to enable governments and private online companies to understand their respective obligations in relation to human rights protection online? The Action analyzes whether and how national governments have established a regulatory framework for online companies and how these companies have implemented the obligation to protect human rights and combat hate online in their community standards. Transparency and accountability are explored through the lens of corporate social responsibility.

SmatchS - Sports organizations Matching Social inclusion is an ERASMUS+ project that aims to promote inclusion and equal opportunities in sport. This project was initiated to address the existing challenges in social inclusion of children with a migrant background by using sport activities, which are recognized by European policy as a powerful tool to provide equal opportunities and access to social rights for all members of society. Within the project, the UNI-ETC team, led by Prof. Oberleitner, will ensure efficient monitoring, validation and evaluation of the project process and outcomes.

JuWiLi - Hexagonale EU Project - Justice without Litigation for Europe is a JUST project that aims to improve the application of the EU Succession Regulation through a better understanding of the judicial functions performed by notaries. The project aims to identify common minimum procedural standards that allow the criteria of the term "court" as defined by EU law to be met. The economic part of the project will carry out an in-depth analysis of the function of notaries as court commissioners in order to assess possible social and economic benefits arising from these non-contentious court proceedings. The study will include extensive data collection that will be used to develop new mixed indicators (Justice Scoreboard, CEPEJ) to compare the efficiency of national systems. Finally, as a contribution to better enforcement of judicial decisions through improved procedures, case handling and cooperation in cross-border civil matters, the project aims to establish a dedicated online cooperation mechanism by adding a special online application form and chat room to the CNUE's ENN (European Notarial Network), facilitating communication between notaries performing judicial functions in Europe. This will strengthen mutual trust in such proceedings and complement legal assistance instruments such as the EJN in civil and commercial matters. The REWI University of Graz team led by Prof. Lurger will be responsible for the legal analysis.

ETAPAS - Ethical Technology Adoption in Public Administration Services, is a Horizon2020 research project that aims to introduce a practical framework for public authorities to assess, measure and mitigate ethical, societal and legal risks associated with the use of disruptive technologies. Disruptive technologies have great, as yet untapped potential to promote the development of new and more efficient public services. Reasons for this include a lack of resources in terms of skills and infrastructure, but also resistance to and a lack of trust in the technology. Although the topic of ethical, social and legal issues related to DTs has been raised recently, practical guidelines to fully assess the risks of using DTs in public administration are still lacking. The REWI Graz team, led by Prof. Ehrke-Rabel and Prof. Eisenberger, will produce concrete guidelines for the legal assessment of the use of disruptive technologies in different areas of the public sector. Based on this introductory study, a matrix will be further developed for the four use cases, which will enable an assessment of the compatibility of disruptive technologies with fundamental rights, democratic principles and the relevant European legislation.

TRAIN TO EN4CE is a JUST project that aims to develop and provide training for judges and lawyers on EU procedural law. Two important regulations to facilitate cross-border debt recovery, the European order for payment procedure and the European Small Claims Procedure, simplify, speed up and reduce the costs of litigation in cross-border cases involving pecuniary claims and, in particular, facilitate the cross-border enforcement of judgments. However, these instruments are not used to their full extent, largely due to a lack of awareness among practitioners. The REWI Uni Graz team led by Prof. Anzenberger will co-develop and prepare material and cases for the training, organize a series of conferences for Austrian lawyers and judges and contribute to the trainings in other partner countries.

DISCOM - Development of Interdisciplinary Skills for Cooperation and Conflict Management is an ERASMUS+ project that aims to strengthen students' interdisciplinary skills and soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, cooperation and conflict management. DISCOM therefore aims not only to help students achieve better results at university, but above all to better equip them for their professional lives. Studies have shown that although soft skills are of great importance in professional life, they are rarely taught at university. The DISCOM project is therefore developing an interdisciplinary course and corresponding training materials (including a mobile app) to be offered at the partner universities. Within the project, the REWI Uni Graz team, led by Prof. Ferz, is responsible for developing the section on conflict diagnosis and conflict management.

CODEMAL - Cooperation Development among Mediators and Lawyers is a JUST project that aims to promote cooperation between practitioners, such as lawyers and mediators, and to support an effective and coherent application of the Brussels II regulations concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial and parental responsibility matters. CODEMAL will develop legal and mediation training to improve mutual and multidisciplinary understanding and promote a smoother resolution of cross-border family law disputes, especially those involving children. Within the project, the REWI University of Graz team, led by Prof. Ferz, is responsible for developing the materials to support the training.

SOTER - cyberSecurity Optimization and Training for Enhanced Resilience in finance is a Horizon2020 research project dealing with cybersecurity in the financial sector. In order to improve cyber security and better combat cyber attacks, SOTER is developing a digital onboarding platform (a tool for digital identification and facilitating connections between different service providers and users). The REWI University of Graz team, led by Prof. Ehrke-Rabel, is focusing on the development of training for bank employees in cooperation with cybersecurity technology providers, banks and users.