Current projects

The kestrel is the most common raptor in the city of Vienna. Since 2010, the "Vienna Kestrel Project" has been investigating how these falcons have adapted to city life. A key component of our research is knowledge about nest locations which allow us to access broods for further investigation. The…

In the PolliDiversity project, students explore flowering areas and observe pollinating insects like wild bees. Using digital tools, they collect scientific data and learn how to protect and experience biodiversity. What are the aims of the project? In the PolliDiversity project, students investigate the development of flowering areas using the…

Amphibians and reptiles under observation in Austria Importance and evaluability of databases increase with the extent, the precision and the currency of the data stored. The Natural History Museum Vienna, one of the largest non-university research institutions in Austria, houses more than 30 million objects from the fields of biology, earth…

Since 2008, the Institute of Silviculture at BOKU University, Vienna, has been analyzing the occurrence, distribution, causes and characteristics of forest fires in Austria as part of various research projects. The data series spans several decades and includes around 8000 fires, of which around 7000 are forest fires. The last…

Ural owl resettlement The resettlement of the Ural owl is led by a team of researchers headed by ornithologist Richard Zink at the Austrian Ornithological Centre at "Vetmeduni" Vienna. The goal is the "Come Back" of the big owl into the forests of Austria. A new occurrence in the alps…

Counselling centres for women* are important institutions that have been founded since the 1980s by the second women's movement. In the project, researchers are conducting research together with counsellors and clients of Viennese women's* counselling centres. We are interested in the life stories of women* who seek help at counselling…

Every observation counts! The City Nature Challenge (short: CNC) is an annual nature competition between regions that takes place in spring (usually at the end of April, beginning of May) and is held simultaneously in various cities and regions worldwide. On four consecutive days, people around the world document the…

Citizen Science with a long tradition The first water bird counts in Austria took place as early as the 1950s. In the following years, the number of counts was gradually increased, and from 1970 onwards Austria-wide surveys have been carried out. This makes the waterbird census one of the longest…

Monitoring of Amphibians and Reptiles in Austrian Gardens The BIOM-Garten project invites people of all ages to look out for amphibians and reptiles in their gardens and report their observations. This will help to fill gaps in existing monitoring and implement better conservation measures for these endangered animals. What are…

For our national tick monitoring programme, we invite you to provide us with ticks. Your samples will help us analyse which tick species appear when and where in Austria. Moreover, ticks will also be investigated for the presence of pathogens. What are the aims of the project? The goal of…

Participatory exploration of the "Kremser scorpion” (Euscorpius tergestinus) with school students "Triestino scorpion" (Euscorpius tergestinus - still listed as E. carpathicus in the Red List of NÖ), which are threatened with extinction in Lower Austria, exists as an archaeozoon in Krems. This population is an isolated north-eastern outpost of the…

App for the scientific recording of Austrian butterflies On behalf of Blühendes Österreich - BILLA gemeinnützige Privatstiftunga, butterfly expert Peter Huemer published a report on the dramatic state of the butterfly fauna in May 2016. In Europe, their number had fallen by half since 1990 and over 50 percent of…

Are swallows nesting at your house or in your stable? Have you seen a badger in the middle of town? Or do you regularly observe a kestrel in your garden? We are interested in your observations in rural settlement areas!

In this citizen science project of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, we would like to create an overview of where animals are roadkilled and what reasons there might be for this. In the Roadkill project, we would like to cooperate with you in many ways, because…

Since April 2021, the BaF-Biodiversität am Friedhof project has been researching biodiversity in Austrian cemeteries in collaboration with Friedhöfe Wien GmbH, with a special focus on Vienna's cemeteries. The aim is to document biodiversity and analyse the impact of human activities on these urban habitats. This close cooperation between BOKU…

The AmphiBiom project is focused on the study of the European green toad in Austria. With the support of Citizen Scientists, we investigate the distribution of this endangered amphibian species, which, as a typical pioneer species, can quickly colonize newly emerging water bodies. Therefore, the European green toad is an…

Participate in archaeological field surveys and/or in cleaning, documenting & interpreting archaeological finds. A transdisciplinary look at the early Neolithic communities in the Schletz settlement cluster The project aims to explore the surroundings of the famous Neolithic settlement of Asparn/Schletz (Lower Austria). Numerous human remains suggest a violent attack on…

"Pilzfinder" - what it's all about Until a few decades ago, knowledge of wild edible and poisonous mushrooms was widespread. Especially the older population knew about the seasonal occurrence of the mushrooms. Finding mushrooms is a popular hobby for young and old, which is accompanied by great experience. In order…

The Austrian wide winter bird count of BirdLife Austria Every year, the bird conservation organisation BirdLife Austria hosts the "Hour of Winter Birds", the Austrian winter bird count. All nature lovers are invited to count birds for one hour on the days around January 6th. All participants actively contribute to…

Mental Health around Childbirth This project focuses on the mental health of parents around childbirth, aiming to detect issues early and provide better support. The goal is to promote the emotional well-being of parents and infants and improve access to support services in Tyrol. What are the aims of the…

Many archaeological artifacts today are only preserved in fragments. Reassembling these parts into their original form is therefore an important but challenging task for archaeology.  Computer-assisted methods can facilitate this task or even partially solve it in some cases. However, due to the usually poor preservation of these artifacts and…

Your cat - our researcher Attention cat owners in Vorarlberg! Under the motto "Show me your mouse, cat!", we are collecting dead mice and other small mammals that your cat brings to your home. From June to November 2024, you can hand in these "gifts" from your cat to us…

How to raise the village to raise the child The Village Project supports children and adolescents of parents with mental health issues by strengthening their formal and informal support networks. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Village approach and integrate it sustainably into existing structures. What are…

A couple of Instagram stories here a TikTok video there: The pervasiveness of our everyday lives with more and more media content consumed in a short period of time has completely changed the way we access and deal with information: Due to their everyday use of and the strong fusion…

Relevance of mathematics lessons from the students' perspective The relevance that students attribute to mathematics education is a crucial variable for its success. Against this background, it is surprising that there is little international scientific evidence on these ideas. Instead, it is evident in various countries, including Austria, that students…

Karst and cave documentation The Working Group on Karst and Caves (KHA) of the Natural History Museum Vienna cooperates closely with the Speleologic Society in Vienna and Lower Austria, but also with other groups of the Austrian Speleological Association (VÖH). The KHA is primarily active in the eastern part of…

A project of the Viennese environmental protection department In spring (from early April), there's no doubt: the first swallows and swifts have returned from Africa to breed in Vienna. Other species, like house sparrow and jackdaw, have spent the winter with us and have already occupied their breeding places. House…

Monitoring in the Karawanken UNESCO Global Geopark  Together we can limit the spread of invasive species and protect the biodiversity of our mountain regions! Introduction Our Citizen Science project is dedicated to monitoring invasive alien species (IAS) in the mountain regions of the Karawanken Geopark. Invasive species are plants or…

State-of-the-art DNA technology and citizen science - "Frog in a drop of water" unleashes new prospects for amphibian research Detective work for amphibian protection - for the first time, amphibian screening is being carried out throughout Austria by detecting their DNA traces in water - and everyone can take part.…

The Pollen Diary was launched back in 2009 as a scientific project as part of a master's thesis at the WU Vienna Executive Academy. Meanwhile it has become an important service for pollen allergy sufferers in 13 European countries: Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Serbia,…

The lack of sustainability in human activity is leading to the global destabilisation of our natural systems. The resulting biodiversity and climate crises require a transformation to an environmentally sustainable society. However, the expertise in the field of taxonomy required for this transformation is often only shared by a few…

The sourdough microbiome Attention sourdough bakers and fermentation enthusiasts - HealthFerm is researching plant-based and fermented foods you eat and raise in your home! Fermented foods are present both in our daily diet and in various food cultures: from sourdough bread to beer, wine, pickles, sauerkraut, miso, kombucha, and much…

Better governance of ecosystem services at local scales in the Wienerwald region  A joint research project of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) and the University of Vienna.   What is ServeToPe studying and what are its goals? Society uses a variety of services that natural…

What are Urban Heat Stories? It will get hotter and hotter in the city over the next few years. The impact of heat can vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. It depends not only on the building density or the degree of sealing in the city, but also on the…

Important groundwork for bird protection The association BirdLife Austria has been researching and protecting the native avifauna for over 50 years. Citizen science has always been an essential basis of this work, as BirdLife's expertise is based on decades of collecting bird records. In the past, observations were recorded on…

The CAMALIOT (Application of Machine Learning Technology for GNSS IoT Data Fusion) project The CAMALIOT project integrates data from the Internet of Things (IoT), including smartphones, and traditional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data sources to leverage Big Data, Data Fusion and Machine Learning technologies to to demonstrate how these data can be used in different scientific…

In Viel-Falter: Butterfly Monitoring volunteers, together with researchers from the Department of Ecology of the University of Innsbruck, observe, identify and count butterflies. The aim is to build up and establish an Austria-wide systematic butterfly monitoring. Butterflies are an excellent indicator group for the ecologically extremely important animal group of insects.…

Due to the enormous request and the multitude of consignments of fossil images encompassing almost the entire Earth history, the precise issues and the resulting project target were adapted in accordance to the requirements and wishes oft he citizen scientists. The geographical and chronological distribution of fossils in Austria is…

It is an open secret that hardware operating on our smart devices contains not only plastic, but also conflict materials such as tungsten, tin, tantulum and gold. Technology is therefore not neutral. These resources are mined in conflict regions, assembled to electric circuits under harmful labour conditions and mostly ending up…

What is the project about? The crowdsourcing project "Viennese playbills 1930-1939" is about the metadata capture of the playbills from the holdings of the Vienna City Library from this period. Previously only organized by theater and not indexed individually, during the project these valuable historical sources will become recorded individually and thus discoverable for…

What is the project about? The crowdsourcing project "Letters 1914-1919" is about the transcription of the unique letter collection of the Vienna City Library from this period. In contrast to historical printed works, which are now subjected to automatic full-text recognition as standard, this is still not so easy to…

From alpine crested newt to sand lizard - gardening enthusiasts report please Private gardens not only provide a place of peace and relaxation for humans but can also serve as important habitats and stepping stones for many animal and plant species. Especially the two endangered species groups of amphibians and…

We take care of our meadows and alpine pastures! For more than a decade, hundreds of farmers have been saying "We look at our meadows and alpine pastures!". The regular observations of the more than 700 participants impressively show that on more than 80 % of the monitoring plots in…

Flexibilisation of WF-mowing dates according to the phenological model  The ÖPUL-measure Nature Conservation results in farmers usually having an agreement on a fixed mowing date. Due to the ongoing climate change, vegetation development fluctuates more and more especially during spring and early summer. Therefore, it was proposed to expand the…

Archaeological finds of textile remains give an insight into ancient weaving techniques, including fabrics from the Hallstatt salt mine dating from between 1500 and 300 BC, or finds of gold threads such as those from Ebreichsdorf in Lower Austria, ca. 1100 BC. They are scientifically analysed and reworked in the…

"Crows in the zoo" is a Citizen Science project of the Department for Behavioral and Cognitive Biology of the University of Vienna in cooperation with the Konrad Lorenz Research Center and the Zoo Vienna. The researchers aim to find out more about the species and subspecies of crows that use the…

In spring, scientists invite everybody around Europe to take part in the biggest cowslip observation campaign “Looking for Cowslips”. The aim of the project is to examine the patterns of flower morphological traits (i. e. heterostyly) in cowslip populations all across Europe using a citizen science approach. The citizen science…

The European genealogy database "Connecting genealogists" GenTeam is a European platform of genealogical databases. Both scientists and amateur genealogists can make their data available here for free for other researchers. The cooperation of collaborators from many different countries has made it possible to compile databases that one researcher could not…