Projects

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…

The shrinking town of Eisenerz lies at the foot of the Erzberg mountain, Austria’s largest and best-known site of extraction of iron ore. The post-industrial town is experiencing a rural exodus, which concerns women in particular. The spatial practices of mining areas have been under-researched using inclusive methods. Mining is…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The TRA:WELL project focuses on the relationship between active mobility (walking, cycling, scooters) and the well-being of young people. The entire physical activity behaviour is considered in order to assess the contribution of active forms of mobility to the fulfilment of physical activity recommendations. What are the aims of the…

Innovation to strengthen the Austrian fresh vegetable supply Market 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…

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…

Monitoring of Soilbiota by Citizen Science SoilRise is a research project on earthworm biodiversity in Europe. Earthworms play a crucial role in soil fertility and are considered important ecosystem engineers. With your help we like to collect data on the distribution and diversity of earthworms in Europe. But SoilRise is…

Youth and single parents doing urban research  About the project The climate crisis repeatedly exposes existing weaknesses in democratic practice. On the one hand, groups that are most affected by the consequences of climate change are often underrepresented in the prevailing political and planning practice (participation crisis). On the other…

Spring mapping in the Großes Walsertal Biosphere Reserve (Austria) In 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…

Citizen Mapping as a Practice of City-Making The 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…

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…

DeVOTE is a research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) from January 2021 to December 2025, and led by Ass.-Prof. Carolina Plescia to develop and apply a new approach to study what ‘voting’ means for ordinary citizens. The project’s goals are: understand what ‘voting’ means for ordinary citizens; examine the variation…

On Geo-Wiki.org you can participate in global environmental monitoring and help to observe and document the earth and what happens on it on a large scale. Whether it is deforestation, the varying size of fields in agriculture or the fast and precise evaluation of hurricane damage - your contribution is…

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…

Be an expert on your disease and join our research! The PATIO initiative is working hard to strengthen the voices of prostate cancer patients and their caregivers heard in medical research. Why is it important to act now?  Porstate cancer affects a considerable number of people in Austria. On the one…

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…

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…

In the Institute of Silviculture at the BOKU University, the occurrence, spread, causes and characteristics of forest fires in Austria have been analysed as part of various research projects since 2008. The array stretches back over several decades and includes approximately 8,000 fires, more than 7,000 of which were categorised…

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…

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…

We are tracing the Sculptured Resin Bee! Home of the Sculptured Resin Bee (Megachile sculpturalis, Smith 1853) is far away in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. In 2008, the Sculptured Resin Bee was discovered in southern France as the first introduced wild bee species in Europe. Since then, the bee…

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. Background Only 46% of the population…

Since 2006, a wide variety of nature observations can be reported on naturbeobachtung.at. Specially designed reporting masks for various groups of animals, plants and fungi allow detailed entries. The reporters can, as far as possible, identify their observations taxonomically or report them as "undetermined species". The latter can then be…

The Austrian Breeding Bird Atlas 2013-2018, published in 2024, is the most up-to-date and comprehensive source of information on the occurrence of breeding birds in Austria and changes in their distribution over the last few decades. What is the Breeding bird atlas? The breeding bird atlas presents the distribution of…

The project Pilzdaten-Austria.eu aims at a comprehensive documentation of the occurrence and distribution of fungi in Austria, and to present and evaluate the available data. It is an Austria-wide cooperation of numerous mycologists, citizen scientists and institutions, which collect distribution data of fungi or hold collections of fungal specimens, coordinated…

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!

Wanted - Garden dormouse in Vorarlberg The garden dormouse, which is active at dusk and at night, has probably the most contrasting coat colouration among the small mammals in our latitudes. It prefers coniferous and mixed forests with rocky ground as its habitat. Little is known about its occurrence in…

Visitors of the Cumberland game park in Grünau im Amtal (Upper Austria) were invited to use an app to enter sightings and behavioural observations of greylag geese, common ravens and northern bald ibises and thus support research projects and the long-term monitoring of the Konrad Lorenz Research Center (KLF). Since…

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…

Music therapy from our perspectives “My Tune“ was a participatory research project in the field of music therapy (MT), which was carried out at the WZMF* and funded by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft GmbH in the frame of the “Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement in Research 2021” call. From…

The growing flood of images cannot be processed by institutions alone. Partnership with citizen scientists is vital. Topotheque is a digital archive and network in which this historical legacy can be gathered. For the locally resident Topotheque users, every new image and new piece of information means a valuable building…

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…

The research project Werkstatt Neu Leopoldau is focused on the settlement process as a workshop situation for social innovations in housing and urban development, with the aim of fostering sustainable development and creating good neighbourhoods. As an applied research project, "Werkstatt Neu Leopoldau" (Co-creation Neu Leopoldau) accompanies the settlement process…

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…

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…

The Ideenbox (box of ideas) collects the problems of citizens and patients around the topic of health (such as physical and mental health issues, social consequences, care, health prevention...), for which solutions are to be developed with citizens, researchers and other stakeholders. Which health problem do you want research to solve?…

ExploreAT! - exploring Austrias culture through the language glass The exploreAT! project aims to provide unique insights into the diversity of the German language (especially in Austria). With the help of innovative digital tools, a unique collection of Bavarian dialects in the region of the former Habsburg Monarchy (1911-1998) is…

Offers active beyond the duration of Zeit.shift The Zeit.shift project ended in June 2023. The central web offerings continue to be active beyond the project duration. Specifically, the results can be followed via the website. The newly generated web portal is accessible worldwide and the text material provided (several million…

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…

Overview You can tell by its name: The forest dormouse (Dryomys nitedula) is a characteristic species for deciduous and mixed forests. It belongs to the dormouse family and its survival is inextricably linked with forest habitats. The forest dormouse is protected throughout Europe, but data on its distribution is largely…

Compared to PolliDiversity, PolliDiversity 2.0. is still about creating habitats for insects, but the tasks of the citizen scientists have changed somewhat due to usability. The project was offered for the first time at the Citizen Science Award in 2021. In 2022, the second round took place in a modified…

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…

This project of the Austrian Alpine Association - a biodiversity monitoring above the timberline - increases our knowledge about alpine animal and plant species, their habitats and about the interrelationships of our actions and the effects on this sensitive living environment. The collected data on the 20 animal and plant…

The Austrian start-up Livin Farms develops innovative technologies for the sustainable breeding of insects. Food and other organic residues can be recycled with the help of insects and converted back into valuable proteins. In this way, cycles can be closed and food systems can be made more sustainable. Explorer Challenge…