Institute for Urban and Regional Research

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Institute for Urban and Regional Research is an institution of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . It is part of the social sciences center of this academy.

Mission and goals

The scientific task of the Institute for Urban and Regional Research consists in the documentation, analysis and interpretation of regional, inter-urban and inner-city disparities in society and the use of space. The disparities are interpreted as the result of social action in a given political system and examined from an interdisciplinary and internationally comparative perspective. The spatial focus of urban and regional research is in Vienna, Austria and Europe. The desired research is fundamentally oriented and without a direct planning related utilization.

Despite this basic orientation, the tasks of the Institute for Urban and Regional Research are always embedded in the internal and general social discourse. When the previous institution ( Commission for Spatial Research and Reconstruction, 1946) was founded, the focus was still on the planned and coordinated removal of war damage and, after regaining national independence, a national atlas was also drawn up as a symbol of the new Austria. Austria's accession issues of international comparison, competitiveness and internationalization at various levels come to the fore. Topics such as the development potential of European metropolitan regions, culture as a location factor in a globalized world or the importance of international immigration for European urban development are expressions of these changed political framework conditions.

history

The accompanying scientific research on questions of the reconstruction of Austria and especially Vienna was the aim of the Commission for Spatial Research and Reconstruction founded by Hugo Hassinger on May 17, 1946. The first chairman of this commission was Hugo Hassinger, who was also the holder of the chair in historical and cultural geography at the University of Vienna . After his death, his successor at the University of Vienna, Hans Bobek , also took over the chairmanship of the commission. At his instigation, it was renamed the “Commission for Spatial Research” in 1954 - and thus without reconstruction. The “Atlas of the Republic of Austria”, first published in 1955, was created under his leadership.

In 1981 Elisabeth Lichtenberger took over the position of deputy, in 1983 the function of chairwoman of the commission. This marked the beginning of a new phase in scientific research. The internationalization of the research was determined by three innovative focal points: "Guest worker life in two societies" (Vienna - Yugoslavia), "Urban decay and urban renewal" (Vienna - Budapest - Prague), "From plan to market" (transformations on the housing and labor market in the post-socialist states). The strictly analytical research style was based on the EDVization of primary research and resulted in the establishment of regional geographic databases, including a geographic information system for Austria. With the resolution of the general meeting of the academy on December 18, 1988, the conversion of the commission for spatial research into the institute for urban and regional research succeeded.

After Elisabeth Lichtenberger's departure in 1992, the management of the institute was transferred to Heinz Fassmann. As a consequence of the changed political framework, the internationalization of the research program was intensified. Topics such as “Europe of the Regions”, “The Future of European Migration” or “Comparative Regional Development in East Central Europe” were given scientific priority. After Heinz Fassmann's call for a professorship in Munich, Manfred M. Fischer took over the management of the institute in 1995. Under his leadership, an attempt was made to give the institute a new direction by founding a new research focus on mathematical modeling, but this was not continued after his departure. In 1999, Axel Borsdorf was appointed managing director. He succeeded in opening up new spatial dimensions (Latin America) in line with Austria's new positioning in a larger Europe and in positioning it in the European and global research landscape. After Alpine research became independent and the Research Center for Mountain Research : Man and the Environment was founded on April 1, 2006 by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck , which is headed by Borsdorf, Heinz Fassmann , as the previous deputy director, took over the office again in 2006 of the managing director. With him, the processing of migration-related topics, an important research subject for many years at the Institute for Urban and Regional Research, was further expanded. Furthermore, the Institute for Urban and Regional Research was able to significantly increase its international visibility and presence through its integration into an EU-wide Network of Excellence ("IMISCOE") and in several EU-funded projects. With the establishment of the Center for Social Sciences of the philosophical-historical class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2007, the Institute for Urban and Regional Research was integrated into this new structure together with six other social science-oriented research institutions.

Thematic research focus

The research work of the Institute for Urban and Regional Research is structured around three main subject areas. The first subject area comprises the "spatial organization and structural structures of urban societies". In this area, the institute maintains projects that deal with the role of new cultural initiatives as motors for the development of Vienna's outskirts. This subject area also includes projects such as the analysis of prefabricated housing estates and their renovation or projects that deal with aspects of immigration to the city, with the resulting areas of conflict and with integration into urban society. The projects relate to Vienna and Austria as well as to other large cities in the developed world. The second subject area deals with “suburban and post-suburban development tendencies”, because one of the central phenomena of urban development in the present and future is the increasing relocation and expansion of urban lifestyles and functions in the urban area. The compact core city dissolves and changes into a new type of settlement. The notion of a center, towards which the functional activities of the periphery are oriented, is being displaced more and more by the image of a polycentric urban structure whose interactions are no longer just central-peripheral, but diverse and without directional dominance. Current and future projects that deal with specific building forms and social phenomena (“silent suburbanization”) in the Vienna area or that address the development processes in the Wienerwald communities are part of this topic. The third main focus (“Regional Change in (Eastern) Europe”) deals with regional development in a national and international comparison. It is not about the idiographic analysis of a specific region, but about a comparative approach that leads to general statements about controlling factors. How are peripheral areas developing outside of the agglomerations in Austria and - especially - in its eastern neighbors? What influence does European regional policy exert and what are the consequences of increasing integration into a European internal market?

Publications

The institute has published articles on urban and regional research since 1975. The ISR research reports have also been published since 1991.

swell

  • Fassmann, Heinz (2009): Geography in Austria: university and non-university anchoring, in: Musil, Robert, Staudacher, Christian (eds.): Mensch.Raum.Umwelt. Developments and perspectives in geography in Austria, Austrian Geographical Society, pp. 53–61, Vienna 2009.
  • Fassmann, Heinz (1994): Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 24 pages, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1994.

Web links