On November 12, 2025, a selection committee consisting of
- two Rectorate representatives
- a member of the RCC Strategic Advisory Council
- an expert in staff and organizational development
- and two representatives of the RCC
met to discuss brilliant ideas to develop our institution collaboratively.
It was a great pleasure for the committee to read all 15 of the proposals for the 2025 Research Culture and Integrity Ambassador Grants!
The projects outlined different focus areas and different tools that promise to
- make our work environment even more collegial
- bring about effective change for departments, faculties, and the entire university
- and work towards sustainable structures that benefit everyone.
We appreciate the effort our university community put into coming up with these innovations for the University of Graz.
The committee has selected three plus one projects, and therefore four teams who will be ambassadors for a research environment based on mutual respect.
There were €5000 grants available for each project. Selected were:
- “From Roots to Words: Rethinking How We Speak About Plants (and Us)” (Döhrn, Hanny, Schrettle, Bürli)
- “Sermilik Handbook for a Safe, Inclusive and Responsible Arctic Reearch Culture at the Sermilik Research Station” (Trügler, Schalamon, Saxinger, Schöner)
- “From Principles to Practice: Fostering Open Science in Graz (Korda, Brohmer, Hofer, Pizka)
Because the amount of funding requested was smaller in some cases, the RCC was able to fund a fourth project, under special collaborative conditions:
- (title tbc) Empowerment for researchers with migration biographies (Vazquez De Track, Saulevich)
Congratulations to the teams!!
You’ll hear more about the project teams and goals in an upcoming portrait by the university communications team, and meet them at the RCC Festival “Communities of Curiosity: Positive Research Cultures Claiming Space”, on April 22 and 23, where they will each present a short three minute pitch.
This call gave us the opportunity to witness their motivation to shape our university. The projects the RCC could not fund this time, but will hopefully find other pathways to come into the world, were centered around
- internationalisation, welcome culture, and good scientific practice for graduate students and PhDs
- motherhood and academia
- appreciation and visibility of third-space professionals
- women in mathematics
- academic career paths and age
- open science and colonial urban history
- artificial intelligence and creative writing
- structured onboarding for new PhD researchers
- including Masters' students into the research environment
- and decolonising libraries.
The selection committee expresses thanks to all those who submitted their ideas!
(Johanna Stadlbauer, Nov 12, 2025)