Fields of Excellence
Fields of Excellence are distinguished by outstanding achievements, international successes and socially relevant topics. In the University´s Fields of Excellence, researchers are linking up across traditional faculty boundaries to explore complex issues such as climate change, and develop new strategies to tackle them. The Faculty of Law is actively involved in the following interdisciplinary fields of excellence:
Climate Change is one of the five interdisciplinary Fields of Excellence of the University of Graz that build on over 25 years of research and connects over hundred researchers across disciplines to investigate climate change and the economic, production-related, social, political and legal changes that are necessary for a sustainable transformation.
The Faculty of Law is supporting young researches through the Doctoral Programme Climate Change and has recently inaugurated its very own Climate Law Centre. The Faculty is also active in a variety of projects, such as the project “Qualitative change to close Austria´s Paris gap: shaping the pathway” and “Legitimate Expectations and Austria’s Transformation to a Low-Carbon Society and Economy”.
The Field of Excellence Dimensions of Europeanization deals with social transformation processes in Southeastern Europe from a comparative perspective: it explores changing discourses about the understanding, organization, and in particular the unification of the material and figurative territory referred to as “Europe” in time and space and questions conventional dichotomies such as East and West, and Centre and Periphery.
The Centre for Southeast Europen Studies was built on the historically grown research expertise in Southeastern Europe and features the Balkan in Europe Advisory Network as well as the interdisciplinary Journal “Contemporary Southeastern Europe”. The Faculty is involved in a series of research projects, among others the Horizon2020 project “Contests of extremisms in MENA and Balkan societies”.
The Field of Excellence Smart Regulation addresses technical innovations, such as the flood of digital data, Industry 4.0 or self-driving cars and their impact on economy and regulation. Researchers at the University of Graz are exploring how to best meet these challenges through regulatory models, behaviour management and ways to influence the decisions made by individuals, companies and society.
The Faculty is also active in a variety of projects, such as the Horizon2020 projects SCALINGS – Scaling up co-creation: avenues and limits for integrating society in innovation, SOTER – Cybersecurity optimization and training for enhanced resilience in finance and ETAPAS – Ethical technology adoption in public administration services, or the project VERDI - Trustworthiness and certification in digitisation using the example of systems for assisted and autonomous driving.