projects - emma dowling

Below you will find further information on four recent projects that I carried out in collaboration with civil society organisations and local communities in Austria.

Between 2023 and 2024 we piloted a series of care councils in different towns in Lower Austria and Styria. Funded first by the Ludwig-Boltzman Society Open Innovation Fund and then by the Austrian National Public Health Institute, we experimented with different participatory methods to bring together residents, political decision-makers and people working in the fields of health, care, social work to jointly develop solutions to local challenges and find ways to both democratise local care infrastructures and transform the conditions for caring and for receiving care.

Both projects were carried out in collaboration with Michaela Moser (University of Applied Sciences St Pölten). Here is a link to our website where you can also download the toolkit we developed (It is currently in German, but we are working on the English translation).

Here is a report by the University of Vienna’s Societal Impact Platform on the project (in German).

In 2024 together with colleagues from the TU Vienna and funded by the Vienna Chamber of Labour I carried out a major survey of the state of public services in Austria and their potential contribution to eco-social transformation. We examined selected sectors (long-term care, health, primary education, energy, housing, public transport, and recreational and green spaces) focussing on issues of provision, regulation and financing, as well as working conditions and workforce developments. We discuss aspects relating to public, non-profit and private enterprises, as well as the potential for achieving environmental objectives and key climate policy milestones (e.g. climate-neutral electricity supply, greenhouse gas reduction targets).

To read the full report (in German), please click on the image above.

Further reading (also in German):

A&W-Blogbeitrag: Daseinsvorsorge ausbauen jetzt! Jobs schaffen, Klima schützen und gutes Leben ermöglichen. Mit Alexandra Strickner und Leonhard Plank. 25. November 2024.

Summary of the main findings (in German): Link

This project examined the current working and employment conditions of public transport bus drivers employed by private companies in Austria. Our goal was to gain a better understanding of which areas of their work and employment require improvement. Our point of departure was the need to expand public transport infrastructure in the context of eco-social transformation. We used a mixed methods research design combining a survey and semi-structured interviews and developed the research design through a stakeholder process.

To read the full report (in German), please click on the image above.