Research

Within the scope of institute activities, we conduct scientific research aimed at  improving the theoretical and practical levels of our client service. The main focus of our research is the comparison of mentality of Western and Eastern Europeans from different perspectives.

The results of the completed projects are published as separate papers, monographs, analytical conference reports, and included into collections paper-based and electronic periodicals. 

 

 

 

 

Current projects

Generation Innovation across Europe

Empowering Young European Talents!

The innovative goal of this project is to support Europe’s young talents in the field of social and cultural sciences! The team members will be recruited from 4 different European countries, where 4 renowned universities advocate the project: Sigmund Freud University Vienna (Austria), Ukrainian Catholic University Lviv (Ukraine), Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany) and Palacky-University Olomouc (Czech Republic).

The future of Europe depends on the next generation. But hardly anyone listens to them—even less so at the Eastern periphery of the continent. We therefore want to support junior researchers in 4 European countries to jointly investigate what is relevant and innovative for their own generation.

In this regard the project will profit from topical research findings at Sigmund Freud University Vienna and at the Franz Vranitzky Chair for European Studies at the University of Vienna.

Talking about my generation...

In preliminary research at Sigmund Freud University (SFU) Vienna we have asked 100 young people to tell us what the future holds for them, what they dream about, what they strive for in life. In terms of their innovative potentials there seem to be large differences between urban and rural areas as well as between Western and Eastern European countries. What might work in one place does not necessarily turn into a success story elsewhere. Through our network of partner universities across Europe (Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Ukraine) we would like to investigate the driving innovation factors for young people coming from various social, cultural and national backgrounds.

The sustainability goal of the project will be assured by the project team's joint application to further European or national funding programs at the end of the project (e.g. ERASMUS+, CEEPUS, FWF- and OeAD-programs, HORIZON 2020 etc.); final project report, publications, final account statement, copies of all bills which were paid with the funds raised through Respekt.net, photo documentation.

Fostering the cooperation of "innovative young researchers" across Europe

Young people today are living in a time of crisis and skepticism that influences their understanding of the past, present and future. We would like to investigate the similarities and differences of young people through the international matrix of our partner universities situated in Austria, (Eastern) Germany, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. By doing so we would like to support the network with regional universities in Lviv, Olomouc, Magdeburg, in order to compensate the competitive disadvantage they usually have in relation to universities located in capital cities. In regard to the proposed research project the individual partners of the consortium are furthermore capable of contributing a wide range of interdisciplinary competencies, such as: e.g. cultural psychology, psychotherapy science and qualitative research methodology (Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna), history and historical anthropology (OvGU Magdeburg), theory of consumer culture and philosophy of art (Palacký-University Olomouc), journalism and psychology (Ukrainian Catholic University Lviv), etc.

Time Line

Jan. 2016: Project Start

Selection of candidates, setting up the consortium, preparing empirical research workshops and workshops regarding European and national funding programs, organizing travel and housing for team members

Feb. 2016: 1st Partner Meeting (Lviv, Ukraine)

Getting to know the group members, research workshop and preparation of empirical research; presentation of European and national research funds

Feb-Apr. 2016: Research Phase 1

field research and group discussions at the four project locations

Apr. 2016: 2nd Partner Meeting (Olomouc, Czech Republic)

Presentation of preliminary results & joint data analysis workshop, discussion of sampling strategy for research phase 2; discussion of intervention and dissemination measures; discussion of options for applying to further national or European research funding programmes

Apr.-Jul. 2016: Research Phase 2

Data analysis and strategic collection of further data; preparation of applications for further research funding programs

Jul. 2016: 3rd Partner Meeting (Magdeburg, Germany)

Aim: Comparative data analysis of results; planning of joint intervention and dissemination strategies, planning of final project presentation

Nov. 2016 Final Presentation (Vienna, Austria) / Project End

Beneficiaries

Society as a whole will benefit from the innovative potential set free by young people that are 1) better educated, 2) culturally sensitive, and 3) capable of jointly working together within international and interdisciplinary projects. This project further fosters the exchange of knowledge and experience within the partner institutions and different countries within Europe.

Beneficiaries of the project are also the institutional partners, who will receive an improvement of their research capacities as well as the young researchers themselves, who will be given the unique opportunity to can realize their own work perspectives within basic and applied research.

Sustainability & Outcome

The major goal of this Call4Europe project is to make optimal use of the provided funds. We will form a strategic European partnership amongst the “innovative young researchers” (and their universities), that enables them to jointly qualify for the application of further European funds. Hence, substantially the project outcome will be an application to one of the more substantial funding programmes (e.g. ERASMUS+, CEEPUS, FWF- and OeAD-programs, HORIZON 2020 etc.). In terms of sustainability we expect that this will help the young members of the project team to take the next step up the innovation ladder.

 

 

 

Viennese and Lvivians: Looking onto the Other.                     A Reconstructive Study on the Basis of Private Photographs.

 

The aim of this investigation is to identify the commonalities and differences of behavior orientations and reality constructions of Ukrainian and Austrian picture producers. The empirical approach follows the analysis of private photographs that Ukrainians and Austrians created during their reciprocal visits in Vienna and Lviv. This thesis is based on picture- and photo interpretation by the Documentary Method. Before the background of common, nation overlapping orientations on the Austrian, the old and the contrasting, two resulting types of views emerge: In Ukrainian photographs an “aesthetizised-possessive view” is documented. This view is static and controlled, future oriented and looking up to the exclusive, orderly and staged. In Austrian photographs we can find a “documentary-researching view”. This view is factual, spontaneous and oriented on a chaotic, but authentic past as well as anonymous, de-individualized masses. The two types of views point to common and specific socio-cultural developments that people in both cities Vienna and Lviv have undergone during the last centuries.

Name Author: Nataliya Khimka

Supervisor: Aglaja Przyborski

 

 

Eurŏpcity

“Yours” in “other” city

 

Project goal: Promoting the growing together of Europe by the participation of its people: Creation of new, productive encounters in other cities.

The project is aimed at activation, methodological reconstruction and resonance of communicative resource of Lviv and Donetsk inhabitants’

Participants:

People, aged 25-30, born and currently reside in Lviv and Donetsk, which faced issues of intercultural integration of Lviv and Donetsk and have personal motivation to participate in this project

Involving people who are not just young, but are young and have already established a certain degree of independence. There is an abundance of young student projects in Eastern Europe, but there is hardly anything for the age-group 24+. Those people, however, are the ones who are currently the most active democratically and civically in Ukraine—they are founding NGOs, creating businesses, investing themselves in ambitious projects.

Detailed description of activities and its purpose 

  1. An experimental room will be constructed for real experience of transregional cooperation so that project participants could face a creative challenge meanwhile other city becomes a field for seek not of other but its own identity, bypassing stereotypical communicative schemes.
  2. Participants will take two-day preparatory workshop in their cities.
  1. Four teams in Lviv will work to create cultural product during five days: an assignment is aimed at finding definition of own cultural identity in unknown cultural space with a help of cameras and video cameras. That it participants from Donetsk in cooperation with Lviv’s participants will search, discuss and fix in Lviv subjects that would represent quintessence of life in Donetsk as well as Lviv. 
  2. Presentation of completed works (short visual presentations) and drink reception: through real experience of cooperation, the participants will master skills of over-regional communication, and their successful cultural products will show common basis of Lviv and Donetsk.
  1. Meeting of organizers of project with all participants to discuss and analyze the effectiveness of defined framework of teamwork.
  1. The cultural product of participants (short visual presentations) will be the subject of research and will get a scientific reconstruction based on documentary method. There will be found functional mechanisms of dialogue and structures of cooperation between two cities.
  2. Participants will receive special training «Social Media Comunication» to stay involved online on the basis of their real-world experiences. This platform will also be used to sustain the project afterwards and keep people involved in the project.

The expected project outcomes

  • Participants of the project will create a common cultural product as quintessence and evidence of powerful common resource for dialogue and cooperation between Lviv and Donetsk
  • Through a real experience of cooperation, the participants will train their skills of over-regional communication. They will learn to think critically and democratically and will get inspiration for their own initiatives.
  • Resonance of problems of project will be valuable and relevant to contemporary cultural policy in Ukraine

Short-term impacts 

  • Twenty four participants from Donetsk and Lviv will receive an experience of successful partnership
  • The participants will be involved into supporting of their contacts after the end of project through online-based platform

Longer-term impacts 

  • Project results will become an important basis for cooperation between some other cities, the results of which will be modularly accommodated as well as helpful for development of pluralistic and democratic society

Project leaders: Nataliya Hampl and Olya Shyshak