News
March 2026: Gerda Falkner presents Study on Digital Services Act
In another instalment (01/2026) of the EIF Working Paper Series, Gerda Falkner presents the findings of her in-depth study on the EU’s Digital Services Act. “Favouring Platforms over Citizens? EU Policy Choices in the Digital Services Act” outlines a new path for analysing legislation: Through an extensive collection of statements from stakeholders, most importantly in the European Parliament and the European Commission, she maps out what the maximal and minimal regulatory effect of the Digital Services Act could have been and then compares this with the final Regulation’s provisions. Furthermore, she uses these findings to evaluate the generally held assumption that the European Union leans systematically towards citizen-oriented legislation (in contrast to the market-driven United States of America and the state-driven People’s Republic of China), a claim elaborated in Anu Bradford’s 2023 book about digital empires. The results are unexpected – and worth the read: https://eif.univie.ac.at/downloads/workingpapers/wp2026-01.pdf
October 2025: Beatrice Carella new post-doc at EIF
We warmly welcome our newest team member, Beatrice Carella. She joins the Vienna Working Group on Digital Europe and will work with Gerda Falkner, Sebastian Heidebrecht and Christine Gajo on scrutinising EU attempts to mitigate the dangers to democratic governance arising from processes of digitalisation. She will continue her research on platform work legislation and social policy in the EU.Beatrice received her PhD in Political Science and Sociology from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Florence for her thesis Populism in power from the Left: Impact on welfare state development in Southern Europe. Until recently, she participated in an ERC Synergy Grant Project with Maurizio Ferrera, Hanspeter Kriesi and Waltraud Schelkle at the University of Milan.
June 2025: Post doctoral position at EIF
Another position is open for applications - we are looking for a post doc that would start at the beginning of September 2025 or thereafter. Qualifications in the field of European Integration - and, ideally, in digitalisation - are required. The position will be supervised by Professor Gerda Falkner. See the full announcement for more details - applications can be handed in till June 9th, 2025.
April 2025: Christine Gajo as new team member at EIF
We are very glad to welcome our new post-doctoral researcher Christine Gajo. Christine obtained a doctorate from the School of Law and Government at the Dublin City University in 2021. Afterwards, she worked in a post-doctoral position at the Centre for Security Studies at the Metropolitan University of Prague and, last year, as a research analyst at a private company. She will join the Vienna Working Group on Digital Europe under the leadership of Gerda Falkner. Christine succeeds Timo Seidl, now Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the Munich School of Politics and Public Policy at the Technical University of Munich.
March 2025: 40th anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger Fellowships
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Erwin Schrödinger Fellowships, a programme by the Austrian Science Funds (FWF) that provides a mobility allowance for Austrian based researchers to go abroad to other research institutions, several alumnae were interviewed about their experiences, among them Gerda Falkner, the head of EIF.
February 2025: New team member at EIF
We warmly welcome our newest member at EIF: David Gazsi. He has obtained a post-doctoral position linked to the professorship of Patrick Müller. He has recently completed his PhD at King’s College London. For more details on his research and experience, see his personal section: https://eif.univie.ac.at/gazsi/index.php
