Activities and projects

Research projects and events

(Kopie 1)

Flyer of the event

13 May 2024, 18:00-19:30, online and HS 15.14 (Resowi)
Prof. Dr Valerie Barnes Lipscomb (University of South Florida, USA):
"Age-conscious Casting: Comedy and the Middle-Aged Ingenue"


22 May 2024, 18:00-19:30, online and HS 15.06 (Resowi)
Prof. Dr Anita Wohlmann (SDU Odense, Denmark and Elisabeth List Fellow):
"Abortion Narratives: Reproductive Health Care between Nuance and Polarisation"


29 May 2024, 18:00-19:30, online and HS 15.06 (Resowi)
Prof. Dr Sarah Falcus (CIRAC Fellow):
"Not-so-secret Gardens: Age, Generation and 'Greenness' in Children's Picturebooks"


11 June 2024, 18:00-19:30, online
Prof. em. Dr Stephen Katz (Trent University, Canada):
"Dementia and Aging: Dilemmas of Care at the Cognitive Frontier"

Summer semester 2023, every Wednesday from 18:45-20:15 in HS 12.11 (Universitätsstraße 2-4, 1st floor)

Organiser: Centre for Interdisciplinary Ageing and Care Research

In co-operation with the Hospice Association Styria and the Age and Care Research Group Graz.

Course leader: Adelheid Brantner and Ulla Kriebernegg

The steadily increasing age of people often leads to the occurrence of serious illnesses in the last stage of life, such as cancer, dementia and other neurological conditions. The modern hospice movement takes care of the dying, their relatives and the bereaved. At the centre of hospice work are the sick people and their relatives with their physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs. This lecture series aims to teach people how to deal with people in their final phase of life and in their environment and to look at this from different angles. This complex topic will be illuminated by lectures from various disciplines such as medicine, pharmacy, psychology, law, literature and ethics. Hospices are "places" of hospitality where people meet strangers, the dying. This hospitality is presented as a viable perspective of a multicultural society. Furthermore, different forms of "euthanasia" are contrasted from an ethical and legal perspective. The socio-political challenges of a changing "culture of dying" will be examined. Another topic of the lecture deals with psychosocial aspects of anxiety in various illnesses and how to cope with them. Another lecture will focus on the experiences of a specialist in medical geriatrics with seriously ill patients and their relatives who find themselves in an emotional state of emergency. In this context, palliative and hospice facilities as well as contact points and their range of services will also be presented.

Dates and lectures:

Further information can be found here.

Cooperation partner inGraz: Associate Professor UllaKriebernegg, Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Ageing and Care
Junior Fellow: Anna Kainradl

Incoming Senior Fellow: Prof.in Dr.in phil. Helen Kohlen, VPU Vinzenz Pallotti University
Incoming Junior Fellows: Mara Kaiser, MA

Period: August 2022 to February 2024
Symposium: planned for May 2023

In the project "Gender Matters: Aging, Care, and Migration", current findings from gender and intersectionality research are applied to the understanding of narratives of age(ing) of women (60+) with a migration background and experience. Phenomena of particular social explosiveness emerge in the synopsis of the research foci of age(ing), care and migration. The dynamics of invisibilisation and marginalisation, which also affect migrant women, become more complex in the area of health and care services in old age. The three research foci of age(ing), care and migration exhibit diverse thematic overlaps; a joint approach from the respective (ageing studies, care ethics and migration studies) feminist tradition therefore promises new insights for the joint research field.

The aim is to view age(ing), care and migration through the critical lens of gender and intersectionality research, to relate them to each other and thus to provide new impetus for a multi-perspective theoretical conceptualisation in the field of feminist ageing and care research.

Caring Living Labs Graz. Designing urban care spaces fairly, in solidarity and diversity

Caring-Living-Labs Grazstrengthens social participation and promotes health opportunities for older and very old people in precarious living situations in the city of Graz. The aim is to combine the Caring Communities approach with that of Living Labs and thus enable the networked and needs-orientated development of local spaces for thinking, experimentation and action. The focus is on socio-economically disadvantaged groups and people with migration biographies. With a wide range of cooperation partners and stakeholders (Migrant Advisory Board, Graz Peace Office, OMEGA Association, Social Welfare Office, Senior Citizens' Office, VinziDorf Hospice, Institute for Housing Construction at Graz University of Technology), this project aims to contribute to the development and implementation of social innovations together with the target group and to incorporate the knowledge gained from this at a systemic level.

Project management: Associate Professor Dr Klaus Wegleitner and University Professor Dr Annette Sprung

Funded by Health Promotion 21+ and the Healthy Austria Fund.

October 19 - 20, 2021

Addressing migration as a complex research field, this symposium discusses manifold dimensions within this paradigm in order to critically reflect on the intersection of age, care, and migration.

We are delighted to announce that Prof. Sandra Torres (Uppsala University, Sweden), leading expert in the field of Social Gerontology and Migration Studies, will hold a workshop on skills training for PhD students and additionally, give a keynote as part of the HuK-Forum in the evening.

Organised by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC) and the University of Graz's research network Heterogeneity and Cohesion with its clusters Aging, Demography and Care and Migration.

For more information: here.

Head: Assoc. Prof. Dr.phil.Ulla Kriebernegg, Centre for Interdisciplinary Ageing and Care Research

The research project is dedicated to investigating the everyday act of reading newspapers in both digital and analogue contexts by working together in intergenerational teams of two people each - a student from the University of Graz and a retired person aged 60+ from Styria - who all own digital devices that enable them to read the newspaper via an app. These teams then discuss and describe the process of analogue reading and compare it with how reading works online or in the app. This results in "digital stories" that the teams develop together. The "digital stories" shed light on which reading behaviours prevail and which questions, problems and knowledge were exchanged in the intergenerational teams. The "Digital Stories" will then be analysed by researchers from the Age and Care Research Group under the direction of Associate Professor Dr Ulla Kriebernegg (University of Graz). The "digital stories" will be analysed from a humanities and social science perspective. Generational differences and similarities, but also prejudices of age and ageing will be analysed. This analysis will be accompanied by an economic perspective under the direction of Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr Margareta Kreimer (University of Graz). Together with international researchers and experts who will hold workshops and lectures in Graz (ACT, TCAS, AgeCap), scientifically supported work in the teams will be made possible.

The research group aims to develop a method and guidelines that enable informal learning and teaching in the field of digitalisation, including the "age(ing)" component, and allow for the sustainable development of digital technologies that are accessible to all age groups.

Further information can be found here.

"COVID-19: Technology, Social Connections, Loneliness & Leisure Activities: An International Study"

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become an integral part of the lives of old and young members of our society in recent years (cf. Marston et al. 2019; Marston, 2019). Nevertheless, and in light of the social changes since February and March 2020, communication and interaction between individuals has changed. As a result of this change, technologies that promote services, needs and requirements in education, interactions with friends, communities and families have increasingly found their way into the consumer market. This is partly because they convey a sense of normality (cf. Marston, Musselwhite, Hadley, 2020; UOC, 2020). In addition to social changes, it is also likely that age-friendly environments will also change. How technology can then be integrated into a "smart" and age-friendly environment and in turn play a decisive role in the future of the people concerned and their environments requires a basic understanding of the circumstances at hand. (cf. Marston & van Hoof, 2019)

The "COVID-19: Technology, Social Connections, Loneliness & Leisure Activities" study was launched to address these changes and understand people's behaviour. Since the first version, which was published in English on 4 April 2020, the study has become established and is already being conducted by international researchers in numerous translations such as Romanian, Spanish, Catalan, Mandarin and French. Additional translations of the study are to be published in Hindi, Turkish, German and Portuguese in the future.

The study utilises the networks and infrastructure of the researchers involved in order to reach as many participants as possible.

Further information and the opportunity to participate can be found here.