News
25. March 2026
The 24th STS Conference Graz will take place from May 4 to 6, 2026, at the Hotel “Das Weitzer” in Graz and is being organized as a hybrid event by the STS Unit at Graz University of Technology in collaboration with the IFZ.
11. February 2026
The COST Innovators Grant „Next Gender”, funded by the European Commission, invites you to two free events:
18. December 2025
The working group Queer STS, led by Anita Thaler, is celebrating their 10th issue of the annual, open access “Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum”, which they publish since 2016 to co-create queer-feminist knowledge within the STS community.
16. December 2025
IFZ was commissioned by the City of Graz to evaluate Smart City Graz, a sustainably planned urban district in the western part of the city.
3. December 2025
The IFZ is a member of the Graz Climate Pact and had the pleasure of taking part in the one-year anniversary celebration on Wednesday, 26 November 2025.
2. December 2025
We are pleased to invite you to the webinar “Train-the-Trainer – Multiplying Knowledge for Sustainable Public Procurement” on 22 January 2026 as part of the proCURE project.
5. November 2025
Together with its partner FH St. Pölten, the IFZ has published a new guide entitled “Logistics in Figures,” which shows how urban logistics systems can be planned and managed in the future based on solid data.
16. October 2025
The LOGI-TOOLKIT research project was successfully completed in March 2025. The project, which was supported by the BMK as part of the FFG funding line “Mobilität der Zukunft” developed a practical tool for planning urban logistics at the neighborhood level.
7. October 2025
IFZ is coordinating the Horizon Europe R-evolve project, which aims to provide the EU furniture industry with systematic and comprehensive support to accelerate its transition towards a circular economy.
1. October 2025
The PLANET4B project recognised biodiversity loss which intersects with urban inequality as a critical leverage point for the Graz case study. While the city hosts meanwhile almost 40 community gardens, access to green space and healthy food remains uneven. Migrant women, single mothers, and elderly women living alone often face barriers — physical, linguistic, and symbolic — that prevent them from participating in urban greening initiatives. Without deliberate inclusion, such projects risk reinforcing social exclusion and contributing to green gentrification. Could biodiversity initiatives be reimagined to centre social justice, lived experience, and community agency? Could gardens become spaces not just for ecological restoration, but for collective transformation?
24. June 2025
IFZ researchers are currently working on several projects to incorporate gender, diversity, and intersectionality into a wide range of topics in science, sustainability, and technology research. Findings are published on an ongoing basis and presented at conferences.
16. April 2025
The fourth annual event of the PostDoc Office at the University of Graz on April 16, 2025, focused on the importance of academic kindness. Over 80 participants and ten international speakers discussed leadership, collegiality, and academic culture.
15. April 2025
The 23rd STS Conference Graz will take place from May 5–7, 2025 at Hotel Weitzer in Graz, Austria, and will be held as a hybrid event. The conference is jointly organized by the STS Unit of Graz University of Technology and the IFZ.
14 January 2025
LOGI-TOOLKIT, our project to develop a prototype for interactive logistics planning at neighborhood level, was successfully completed at the end of 2024.
14. November 2024
From September 25 to 26, 2024, the final conference of the Horizon 2020 project European Forum for Urban Agriculture(EFUA) took place in the Belgian capital Brussels. The conference, which brought together international players and experts in the field of urban agriculture, was also attended by David Steinwender and representatives of the Forum Urbanes Gärtnern association and the City of Graz.
12. November 2024
About a year ago an Austrian TV presenter translated skier Mikaela Shiffrin's statement “I am kind of in an unfortunate time of my monthly cycle” into German as follows: “I don't even get to cycle, which I do every month. I'm just too tired.”? What must have made many of us smile at the time also triggered a wave of interest and shared experiences of female athletes and their performance during the menstrual cycle.
29. July 2024
At the 2024 joint meeting of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) July 16-19 in Amsterdam, 3748 participants were involved in panels, presentations, making & doing contributions, and other events that explored the role of STS in making and doing contributions to transformations in an era of grand societal challenges.
27. June 2024
On 22 April 2024, IFZ was involved in the planning and organization of the conference "Transformation through Cooperation V" at the Graz Museum, which was hosted by the association ACT (Actin in Commons - Actin in Transition) from Graz. The conference is an annual format with the aim of discussing topics that address the urban-rural interface with a broad range of stakeholders from the social, environmental, cultural, health and education sectors, science, civil society, agriculture, business, politics and administration.
11. June 2024
There will be no simple technological solutions to complex social challenges such as healthy nutrition for all people or responsible implementation of artificial intelligence in organizations without taking social aspects, environmental factors, social structures and power relations into account. The IFZ therefore researches the field of tension of digital and sustainable transformation in transdisciplinary projects with a social justice perspective.
7. March 2024
The University for Continuing Education Krems invited Anita Thaler to give a lecture on March 7, 2024 on the occasion of International Women's Day 2024 on how gender gaps in science affect us all.
13. February 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained increased attention in Austrian companies due to increasing reporting on ChatGPT, the AMS Berufsinfomat or the European AI Act. The IFZ has been focusing its research on the topic of digitalization and AI for many years and has developed a concept for responsible AI in the dAIalog.at and VEKIAA projects.
21. November 2023
Biodiversity loss, alongside climate change, stands as one of humanity's most pressing challenges. Despite its significance, biodiversity is often sidelined in policy decision-making. Addressing this gap, PLANET4B, an innovative research project, delves into understanding how decision-making processes influence biodiversity.
15. November 2023
With the ‘To be Published’ event series, the Coordination Centre for Gender Studies and Equal Opportunities at the University of Graz and the IFZ have been promoting the dissemination of results from excellent theses in the field of gender studies for many years.
24. August 2023
From July 5 to 7, 2023, the summer school "Breaking the Bias: Inspiring Diversity in R&I" took place in Athens, organized by Anita Thaler (IFZ) and Clemens Striebing (Fraunhofer) with dedicated international colleagues from the COST Action VOICES.
26. January 2023
The Gendered Innovations training programme by the nexus Institute in cooperation with TU Berlin demonstrates how sex and gender analysis can be an applicable tool to various industries in order to unclose vital paths for a world recognized in its diversity. Anita Thaler provided the VITAPATCH case study to share insights about the background of "Gendered Innovations" as well as the application of participatory methods for adapting the concept.
1. December 2022
At the end of our project "Development of social gardening in Graz: Concepts and the relation to food justice" we invite you to an event on Wednesday, December 7th, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Festsaal of the Heilandskirche (Kaiser-Josef-Platz 9, 8010 Graz). Please register by tuesday, December 6th, 4 p.m., number of places are limited: david [punkt] steinwender
ifz [punkt] at.
27.10.2022
On behalf of the Styrian University Conference, our colleague David Steinwender works on the continuation of the exhibition for schools "Climate Crisis and Change in Awareness". The exhibition together with accompanying material is being developed as part of the project "Climate Crisis - Let's Act Now!". In the latest issue of the journal GAIA, the project is described and its challenges are highlighted.
24.10.22
An article on the revised Austrian Action Plan on Sustainable Public Procurement is published in the latest issue of the magazine "Das kommunale Magazin für einen nachhaltigen Einkauf".
19.09.2022
Our longtime colleague at the joint institute "Technology and Science Studies" (with locations in Graz – at IFZ – and in Klagenfurt – at the university) Wilhelm – Willi – Berger says goodbye to his well-deserved retirement.
16.05.2022
IFZ was co-hosting the annual conference on ”Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies” (May 2-4) in 2022 in Graz with Günter Getzinger, Michaela Jahrbacher, Franziska Häller and colleagues from TU Graz again. IFZ researchers gave several presentations and organized sessions with international cooperation partners to showcase their diverse portfolio on responsible research and innovation (RRI) in practice.