Carinthia University of Applied Sciences is located in the south of Austria and has 2100 students. It is currently running about 30 bachelor and master programs in engineering, health and business. The School of Mangement, Villach is one of the four locations of the university. The study programs have been established in accordance with the demands of industry and economy and are therefore designed to provide students with a fundamental scientific as well as specific vocational training. Our welltrained and well-experienced teaching staff recruits either from industrial or/and university backgrounds and, in general, possesses teaching experience of higher education fields. Teaching is performed in small groups, which also contributes to the effectiveness of the courses. Moreover, the school offers evening study programs for working students. CUAS has carried out more than 140 local, regional, national &European research projects with approximately 150 partners of the public, private & civil sectors in 2016.
FH-Prof. Dr. Birgit Aigner-Walder
Birgit Aigner-Walder is professor for economics at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences and head of the department Demographic Change and Regional Development of the Institute for Applied Research on Ageing (IARA). She holds a diploma in Public Management and a PhD in Economics. She has been working in research for more than 15 years, in and for several research institutes (Institute for Advanced Studies Carinthia in Klagenfurt, Austria Institute of Economic Research in Vienna, Regional Economics Applications Laboratory in Urbana-Champaign). Her main research interests lie in the fields of population economics (demographic change, labour market, consumption), regional economics (regional economic growth, locational competition) and public finance (public private partnerships, privatisation, fiscal federalism).
Mag. (FH) Marika Gruber
Marika Gruber is senior researcher & lecturer at the School of Management and teaches Inter- and Transculturalism at the Disability & Diversity Studies programme. She is also deputy head of the Department “Demographic Change and Regional Development” at the Institute for Applied Research on Ageing - IARA. She studied Public Management (administrative sciences) and intervention research. Her research focus is on migration studies (especially integration politics, inclusion and interculturality with a strong focus on the local as well as regional level and rural areas), modernizing administration and good governance as well as transdisciplinary/participatory research. For several years, she has led and worked on research projects, addressing the in- and out-migration to/from rural regions, the inclusion of migrants and the removal of political, administrative and societal integration barriers. Marika is MATILDE PI at CUAS and works in the project as researcher and project manager.
Christina A. Lobnig, BA MA
Christina is a junior researcher at CUAS. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in “Health Management and Tourism” and a Master of Arts in “Public Management”. Her current research activities include social innovation, migration, administrative change, crisis governance and knowledge management in public administration.
Albert Luger, BA MA
Albert Luger is a senior researcher at the Institute for Applied Research on Ageing (IARA), and a lecturer at the School of Management (SoM) at Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS). Luger graduated in economics from the University of Graz. Previously, he worked as a researcher for the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) Carinthia. His research focuses on demographics, labor markets, and energy economics.
Robert Ofner, MSc. BSc.
Robert Ofner, junior researcher at the Institute of Applied Research on Aging, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (2018-2021); previously research associate at Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg (Austria), responsible for the coordination of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing Research and Education and teachings i.a. in public health, health promotion, health impact assessment and health psychology.
Jessica Pöcher, BA
Jessica is a research project assistant at CUAS. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Diploma of Vocational and Social Education. Her current study is in the Master degree “Science, Technology and Society Studies”.
Prof. Dr. Rahel M. Schomaker
Rahel M. Schomaker is an economist and political scientist by training, holding a PhD in Economic Policy, and a venia legend in Economics and Public Administration. She is a professors at CUAS Villach, an adjunct professor at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer and a senior fellow at the German Research Institute for Public Administration. Her main research interests concern administrative change, formal and informal public sector cooperations and networks, crisis governance, migration and trust. She is currently involved in several research projects funded under the EU Horizon-2020 program. Her work has appeared in leading public administration and economics outlets, and she serves as a senior advisor for administrative reform for the OECD and different national governments.
FH-Prof. MMag. Dr. Kathrin Stainer-Hämmerle
FH-Prof. MMag. Dr. Kathrin Stainer-Hämmerle was a political scientist and legal scholar at the Universities of Innsbruck and Klagenfurt (IFF) and changed to the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences as a professor of political science in 2009, where she is now responsible for the bachelor’s and master’s programs in public management and the research group Trans_space (https:/ /forschung.fh-kaernten.at/trans-space/) for social change. Studies and publications in the fields of political education, electoral law, participation and democracy research.
Kathrin Zupan, BA MA
Kathrin Zupan is a junior researcher at Carinthia University of Applied Science and member of the research group TRANS_SPACE. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in “Educational Science” and a Master of Arts in “Social and integration pedagogics” from Alpen Adria University of Klagenfurt. Her current research activities include migration studies, integration research, social and integration education.