The Peter P. Chen Award goes to Heinrich C. Mayr

Heinrich C. Mayr, an emeritus colleague at the AICS, former rector of the University of Klagenfurt and president of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI), was honored 2024 with the prestigious Peter P. Chen Award for his outstanding contributions in the field of conceptual modelling during his 45-year scientific career. He is the first scientist based in Austria to receive this award, which is presented annually by the international computer science community to recognize excellence in conceptual modeling. The jury cited his extensive research work, his extensive contributions to applications, his international reputation, and his exemplary commitment to conceptual modeling, including his active involvement in the ER conference and his foundational work in establishing the EMISA group and the “Lecture Notes in Computer Science” series.

Heinrich C. Mayr has also been recognized for his significant service to the computer science community, including his roles as financial vice-president and president of the GI, as well as his work in teaching and the establishment of an IT degree program. The list of his international functions and academic positions is long. Among others, he is an honorary doctor of the Technical University of Kharkiv, Honoured Professor of Science at Kherson State University, recipient of the Golden Medal of the City of Klagenfurt and the Grand Medal of Honour of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce.

He enjoyed teaching and supervised many undergraduate and postgraduate students. His university was always close to his heart. Until today, he continues to research and publish in the areas of modelling, design and implementation of user-centred application architectures and customer-centred, accessible, effective and sustainable software and services, following the principle: “There is nothing more practical than a good theory”.

New Publication in Special Issue on Labour and Welfare in the Global South

In his contribution to this special issue of Global Social Policy, Christof Lammer examines social policy as a knowledge process and shows how the minimum livelihood guarantee (dibao) in China and its relationship to labour changes not only through human actors’ intentions but through the sociotechnical materiality of bureaucratic targeting methods.

The relationship between labour and social policy is at the heart of the social question. Scholars often treat this link as either a causal relation out there or a conceptual connection in policy makers’ minds. This article examines its sociotechnical materiality instead. Christof Lammer follows political anthropologists who ask how bureaucrats practice policy and scholars of science and technology studies who explore how social and technical aspects are interrelated in knowledge processes.

China studies has suggested that the minimum livelihood guarantee (dibao) was originally designed as a market-oriented response to transformations of labour such as mass layoffs, peasant proletarianisation and associated unrest but later revamped to only combat extreme poverty – similar to earlier forms of social assistance during the Mao era. Ethnographic insights into dibao policy in a village in Sichuan show how its designed links to labour were erased and transformed through different methods of bureaucratic targeting, as well as expectations about the bureaucratic ability to know. For a time, dibao was even integrated into alternative rural development projects aimed at decommodification.

Studying social policy as a knowledge process uncovers how its sociotechnical links to labour reconfigure it as an answer to the social question.

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Lammer, Christof. 2024. „Social Policy as Knowledge Process: How Its Sociotechnical Links to Labour Reconfigure the Social Question.“ Global Social Policy 24(2): 166–184, https://doi.org/10.1177/14680181231210158.

Published in the Special Issue: “Reconfiguring Labour and Welfare in the Global South: How the Social Question is Framed as Market Participation”, edited by Minh Nguyen, Helle Rydstrom and Jingyu Mao.

Christof Lammer is a social anthropologist based at the Department of Society, Knowledge and Politics at the University of Klagenfurt. Currently he is a fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin’s Centre for Advanced Studies inherit – heritage in transformation.

Participation of Guido Offermanns, Alexandra Kratki and Andrea Schweiger at the conference of the European Health Management Association (EHMA) in Bucharest

The European Health Management Association (EHMA) conference was held from 5 to 7 June 2024 at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. The conference, ‘Shaping and managing innovative health ecosystems’, was attended by Guido Offermanns, Alexandra Kratki from the University of Klagenfurt and Andrea Schweiger from the Karl Landsteiner Institute for Hospital Organization, who presented three papers.

The first paper by Guido Offermanns and Alexandra Kratki entitled ‘Measuring patient safety culture in Austrian hospitals: open communication as a key factor in improving handovers, teamwork, and adverse event reporting’ presents the findings of an empirical study examining the correlation between effective communication and the level of patient safety. It can be shown that patient safety culture can be empirically measured and that instruments for a measurable improvement in communication can be derived from this. Therefore, it becomes hospital managers’ responsibility to foster an open communication environment and strive to establish a just culture. Referring to the topic of communication, the second contribution by Andrea Schweiger and Guido Offermanns ‘Key factors for effective multidisciplinary work in tumour boards linking team culture and communication to the perceived benefit for patients in cancer care’ dealt with the collaboration of inter- and multidisciplinary teams in oncology. The empirical study analyzed different dimensions of cooperation in cancer care.

The third contribution by Guido Offermanns and Andrea Schweiger was a poster entitled ‘Establishing patient advocacy in cancer care in Austria: The alliance of oncological patient organizations’. The content shows the results of a project carried out with oncological patient organizations in Austria. It shows how the structured and target group-focused process can improve oncological care.

Link to the conference and further information: https://ehmaconference.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-european-health-management-association-ehma-_ehma2024-patientsafety-healthcareexcellence-activity-7216714812532150272-p1pe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

For further information please contact Guido Offermanns, guido [dot] offermanns [at] aau [dot] at

Pictures from Guido Offermanns and EHMA

ICORIA 2024

From June 27 to June 29, 2024, researchers from various nations and disciplines came together in Thessaloniki, Greece at the 22nd International Conference on Research in Advertising (ICORIA 2024). This year’s theme was “Moving forward, looking back: advertising in the advent of AI”. The Department of Marketing and International Management was represented with two scientific contributions.

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