Economic sociologist Valentina Ausserladscheider and demographer Ester Lazzari have both been awarded an ERC Starting Grant, each worth around 1.5 million euros. This brings the total number of these prestigious awards granted to the University of Vienna to 166. The European Research Council (ERC) programme enables pioneering basic research with high innovation potential.
How Economic Actors Respond to Climate-Induced Economic Losses
Climate change is already causing substantial economic losses, with global costs expected to increase dramatically over the coming decades. Regional economies that depend on natural resources are among the most vulnerable, including ski tourism destinations facing shorter and warmer winters and coastal regions threatened by rising sea levels and more frequent extreme weather events. Yet societies exposed to similar climate risks often respond in strikingly different ways: while some continue investing in increasingly vulnerable infrastructure, others withdraw investment from the same markets.
In her ERC funded project STRANDED Ausserladscheider investigates why economic actors respond so differently to comparable climate risks. The project argues that climate-induced economic losses are not determined by economic factors alone but are fundamentally shaped by cultural identities, political-economic structures, and institutional arrangements. Combining sociology, political economy, and environmental science, STRANDED develops a new interdisciplinary framework for understanding how societies perceive and respond to climate-related economic risks. By comparing climate-vulnerable tourism regions across the Global North, the project offers a new theoretical perspective on why responses to similar climate risks diverge. Its aim is to advance understanding of the social drivers of maladaptation and insufficient climate action and to provide evidence-based recommendations for building resilient and future-proof regional economies.
