Current projects
DANUBE4all is an EU project with the main task of developing a comprehensive action plan for the renaturation of river stretches in the Danube River Basin (DRB). To this end, a collaborative stakeholder process is being developed that actively incorporates the interests of citizens. The action plan is intended to contribute to the improvement of the ecological status, biodiversity and river connectivity of the Danube ecosystems and thus supports the EU mission OCEAN ‘Mission Healthy Oceans...
Spring habitats in the Großes Walsertal Biosphere ReserveIn view of increasing extreme weather events, including periods of drought and consequent water shortages, the protection and knowledge of springs in the Großes Walsertal Biosphere Reserve is becoming increasingly important. In addition to their essential role in water supply, springs are often small but very important habitats for endangered organisms. The pressure to utilise and develop existing springs has increased significantly due...
Monitoring in the Karawanken UNESCO Global Geopark Together we can limit the spread of invasive species and protect the biodiversity of our mountain regions!Project descriptionOur Citizen Science project is dedicated to the spread of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) in the Geopark Karawanken. Invasive species are plants or animals that are mostly introduced by human activity into regions where they do not originally occur, for example through intercontinental trade. While most introduced...
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 their potential incompleteness, reliable fully automatic reassembly is rarely possible in practice.The goal of the Open Reassembly project is to...
Your cat - our researcherAttention 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 or other collection points in Vorarlberg. The aim of this campaign is to obtain as much data as possible on our native small mammals for the compilation of the Vorarlberg Red List of Small Mammals.A project as part of the...
Giving a voice to children and adolescents: Co-research with children and adolescents in developing a model of health literacyBackgroundHealth literacy is crucial for promoting health and well-being It encompasses finding, understanding, evaluating, and applying health information and services to make informed decisions for maintaining or improving health and quality of life. This competency is important at every stage of life, including in childhood and adolescence. However, existing...
The sourdough microbiomeAttention 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 more. The art of fermentation is (again) on the rise, and many people are making their own fermented foods at home. Can fermentation help us transition to a more...
State-of-the-art DNA technology and citizen science - "Frog in a drop of water" unleashes new prospects for amphibian researchDetective 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. Amphibians - including frogs, toads, toads, salamanders and newts - are strictly protected in Austria. Nevertheless, populations are continuously and in some cases dramatically...
Relevance of mathematics lessons from the students' perspectiveThe 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 in secondary school have at best fragile ideas about the relevance of mathematics instruction: For example, it is usually emphasized that...
Innovation to strengthen the Austrian fresh vegetable supplyMarket garden centres work according to so-called bio-intensive methods. This means utilising the maximum possible natural yield potential on the land. This yield potential results from the respective location, the climatic conditions (temperature, precipitation, wind, etc.), the production methods and, to a large extent, the soil itself. Beside the type of soil and texture, the thickness of the individual soil layers, the condition...
What can we do to protect our wetlands and floodplains in Europe? What does the water management need to implement measure for the benefit of both the environment and the human society?The Horizon Europe project Restore4Life aims at offering an online system that supports the restoration of wetlands in Europe. One important aspect is the development of easily applicable and meaningful methods to assess the state and functionality of wetlands before and after the restoration. This enables us...
Citizen Mapping as a Practice of City-MakingThe project “City Layers: Citizen Mapping as a Practice of City-Making”, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) introduces a contemporary framework for city-mapping which centres on citizen experience of urban space as an integrative way to contribute to more egalitarian city design. Within the frame of the Citizen Science Award 2023, the City Layers app has been developed in collaboration with students, citizens and researchers all interested in...
Promotion of child and youth-friendly urban landscapes through participatory research on urban green The development of child- and youth-friendly cities is becoming increasingly important due to the deteriorating quality of life in urban areas. An important contribution to this relates to the provision of urban green suitable for young people and their involvement in the future design of urban landscapes. However, it must be taken into account that children and the youth make demands on urban...
Mosquito Alert is a citizen science project that allows tiger mosquitoes and other mosquitoes to be easily reported using a free app. Tiger mosquitoes are always smaller than a 1-cent coin, have a single white line on the back of the head and thoraxand white stripes on the body and legs. The submitted photos are examined by national and international experts and the finds are then displayed anonymously on a publicly accessible map.Tiger mosquitoes are non-native mosquitoes...
In order to find out how information about HPV needs to be prepared to reach the target groups, we are working together with parents, teachers and students in the project “Humane PapilloWAS?” to reveal what is known about HPV and which misinformation is circulating.BackgroundOnly 46% of the population in Austrian are aware about human papilloma viruses, or HPV, and only 34% associate HPV with cancer. This shows that there are gaps in the population's knowledge of a virus that almost...
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 ideal species for projects to investigate the distribution status through call monitoring and the installation of small water bodies with the support of the Citizen Science...
Citizen science-based bumblebee monitoring is a pillar of the Austrian wild bee survey. Most wild bee species can only be distinguished under a microscope. The genus of bumblebees (Bombus) is an exception and can usually be distinguished at species level after a training phase in the field (see Gokcezade et al., 2010), so that not only professionals can help with the observation and recording of bumblebees. Bumblebee monitoring ties in with the already existing reporting platform...
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 all. The playbills provide insights into an initially internationally acclaimed and lively Viennese theater world, which was...
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 ecosystems provide, such as clean water, an attractive landscape for recreational purposes, food, or renewable energy sources. Many of these so-called ecosystem services (ESS) are...
What is the project about?The crowdsourcing project "Letters 1920-1934" 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 do for manuscripts - especially when the documents come from many different writers, as in this case. Since the democratization of knowledge plays a central role in the range of...
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 in contaminating landfills. This pollution is best understood as an enactment of ongoing colonial relations to Land. Arts-based research methods seize artistic...
From alpine crested newt to sand lizard - gardening enthusiasts report pleasePrivate 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 reptiles can benefit from a garden designed with nature in mind. However, occurrences of common tree frogs, smooth newts, common lizards, and other species in residential areas are...
With your ideas towards a innovative social sector for all Our society is facing numerous social challenges and the public administration, charities & social service providers, civil society and (social) enterprises are already working to solve them. In the face of increasingly complex challenges, there is a need for more collaboration and dialogue across sectors. Together we can achieve more! UpdateSocial is designed to provide the framework for collaboration!In all sectors of our...
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 experts. This leads to a bottleneck in biological species knowledge, where, depending on the group of organisms, often only a few citizen scientists have the...