The ISR offers five new topics for master theses!

Two topics are oriented towards the development of a manual for the regulatory evaluation of genetic engineering applications that go beyond mere risk assessment. While this guide will be practically tested and adapted on different case studies in one master thesis, the second offered thesis aims at realizing the guide as a computer program for intuitive use.

In the third topic, a computer model will be developed to predict the dynamics of gene drive organisms released in wildlife habitats.

More details about the calls can be found here (German version only).

If you are interested, please send an email to

Dr. Bernd Giese (bernd.giese@boku.ac.at) or

Dr. Johannes Frieß (johannes.friess@boku.ac.at).

The forth and fifth calls are in the field of renewable energies. One topic deals with the strange relationship between solar photovaltaic cells and solar thermal panels as a case study in path-dependy.

The other revolves around a lesser known risk connected to wind energy plants. The thesis focuses on the expansion of a six-degrees of-freedom model for ice throw from wind energy plants.

More details can be found here.

If you are interested, please send an email to

Dr. Markus Drapalik (markus.drapalik@boku.ac.at)

The freshly published special issue of Sicherheit und Frieden (Security and Peace) presents interdisciplinary contributions to peace research based on the conference SCIENCE-PEACE-SECURITY’19. One submission was also contributed by ISR-scientists.

The article  „Towards a Prospective Assessment of the Power and Impact of Novel Invasive Environmental Biotechnologies“ by Johannes L. Frieß, Bernd Giese, Anna Rössing und Gunnar Jeremias examines new biotechnologies, namely Gene Drives und Horizontal Environmental Genetic Alteration Agents, which exceed classical GMO applications.  The contribution preliminarily explores the suitability of the regulatory governance framework with regard to conflicts that might arise from benevolent or hostile application.

The interim report of our project on advanced materials in cooperation with Ökopol GmbH on behalf of the German Environment Agency is published:

Full Text

The report describes activities within the project “Advanced materials – Thematic conferences: Assessment of needs to act on chemical safety” to provide discussion input on approaches to describe, cluster and prioritize advanced materials. Furthermore, the report proposes a set of criteria to assess the relevance of advanced materials regarding chemical safety.

Even though the theoretical part is successfully finished, the project will go on conducting two more conferences for knowledge exchange within the field of advanced materials. The second thematic conference is just in process by conducting two online conferences: At June 16th, the first part was held with great success including about 100 participants and interesting discussions. The second part will be held at September 15th.