Three ERC Starting Grants, each worth around 1.4 to 1.7 million euros, have been awarded to the University of Vienna: Historian Eva-Maria Muschik, microbiologist Megan Sørensen and historical sociologist Agata Zysiak are receiving the prestigious funding for their research. This brings the total number of ERC grants awarded to the University of Vienna to 155. The European Research Council (ERC) programme enables fundamental, pioneering research with high innovation potential.
Turning point in the 'North-South Conflict' revisited
Measures such as deregulation, privatisation and liberalisation (so-called structural adjustments) were historically – against a backdrop of economic constraints and shocks – often presented as the only option. In fact, however, these policies were highly controversial. In her ERC-funded project Shockage, historian Eva-Maria Muschik examines the global history of ‘structural adjustment’ in the 1980s.
The project analyses conflicts at various levels: between states (especially with regard to the 'Group of 77', an alliance of states from the Global South within the UN); in international financial institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which came under sustained criticism as advocates of structural adjustment); at the national level in Bolivia (which was considered a global prime example of this policy) and in activist circles in East and West Germany (as a precursor to the criticism of globalisation in the 1990s and 2000s). The focus is on the scope for action available to different actors and the alternatives that were formulated and discussed. The aim is to shed new light on an important turning point in recent history and the history of the 'North-South conflict' and to promote a better understanding of it.
About Eva-Maria Muschik
Eva-Maria Muschik is a historian and assistant professor at the Institute for International Development at the University of Vienna. She focuses on the history of development, decolonisation and international cooperation. Muschik completed her doctorate on the early history of the United Nations (UN) at New York University in 2016.
After fellowships at Yale University (2015/2016) and the European University Institute in Florence (2016/2017), she taught at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Bern. Previously, she received a summer research fellowship from the History & Political Economy Project at Johns Hopkins University (2022), an International Research Award in Global History from the Universities of Munich, Basel and Sydney (2018), and a History Project Research Grant from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Harvard and Cambridge Universities (2015).
Key phases in the evolution of endosymbiosis
Microorganisms were crucial in the evolution of life and play an important role in ecosystems. In her ERC-funded project TRANSITIONS, microbiologist Megan Sørensen investigates how closely networked interactions between microorganisms arise and evolve over time.
She is studying partnerships between protists that are at critical turning points in their evolutionary integration. In particular, she is looking at the Paramecium-Chlorella endosymbiosis, which can be used to study the initial integration of independent partners into an endosymbiosis, and Paulinella chromatophora, which provides unique insights into the transition from endosymbiont to organelle. Sørensen aims to uncover the molecular basis of these relationships using a variety of techniques, from state-of-the-art technologies for visualising molecules within a single cell to field samples to observe these organisms in nature. Her work will shed light on fundamental evolutionary processes that continue to shape ecosystems and life on Earth today.
About Megan Sørensen
The microbiologist Megan Sørensen received her PhD from the University of Sheffield (UK) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Universities of Stockholm and Uppsala (Sweden). She then worked at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf with an EMBO fellowship and a Marie Skłodowska Curie fellowship. Her research record has had broad implications for the areas of endosymbiosis and plastid evolution, and has been at the forefront of leveraging protist model systems within these areas. In 2026, Megan Sørensen will come to the Centre of Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna.
Social mobility in Eastern Europe after 1945
In her ERC-funded project CLASS-UP, historical sociologist Agata Zysiak investigates social mobility – i.e. changes in social positions within society – in Eastern European socialist states after 1945. In contrast to the well-studied Western contexts, this qualitative comparative study focuses on how state socialist systems created specific forms of social mobility. CLASS-UP examines how upward mobility was defined, understood and experienced under socialism, focusing not only on measurable indicators but also on the cultural, political and social meanings attributed to mobility. By combining analyses of official discourses, press reports, sociological studies and an innovative cross-generational biographical method, Zysiak aims to reveal how mobility shaped family histories across generations, including the transmission of privileges and the social costs of upward mobility.
About Agata Zysiak
Agata Zysiak is a historical sociologist specialising in the social history of Eastern Europe, social mobility and biographical research. She has been working at the Research Centre for Transformation History (RECET) at the University of Vienna since 2021. She is also a lecturer at the University of Łódź (Poland). Previously, she worked at the University of Warsaw, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, CEU and the Free University of Berlin. In 2017/18, Zysiak was a member of the Social Science School at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.