Institute

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) is the leading human rights institute in Austria. It is committed to both basic and applied research and ensures a sustainable social impact of its work in cooperation with partners from academia, civil society, the public sector and the private sector.

With its interdisciplinary approach, which combines law, social and political sciences, the institute meets the current challenges to human rights and human rights research. Currently, it focuses on the topics of asylum and migration, business and development cooperation, general human rights, human dignity and public security, (in-)equalities and non-discrimination, rule of law and public sector reform and social justice for disadvantaged persons. Under the programme line general human rights, the institute is also dedicated to current topics such as environmental and climate protection, digitalisation and international criminal law.

Characteristic of the LBI-GMR is its focus on the Translational Research Cycle (TRC), which translates research findings into practice and incorporates insights from practice into research. This “cycle of translation” ensures the high quality and effectiveness of the Institute’s research work and secures its hinge function between theory and practice. At the same time, the LBI-GMR is actively involved in the dissemination of human rights knowledge and participates, for example, in the university course Human Rights (LL.M./MLS) at the University of Vienna.

The LBI-GMR is linked to the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna through a partnership agreement as well as through the position of its scientific director, who is also a university professor for fundamental and human rights at the Institute for Constitutional and Administrative Law.

The Institute reports to the Partner Board and is advised by the Scientific Advisory Board and supported in scientific as well as research strategy issues.

Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) is an institute of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG Association). Founded in 1960, the LBG is a non-university research organisation with a thematic focus on medicine and the life sciences as well as the humanities, social and cultural sciences. Together with academic and applied partner organisations, it operates the Ludwig Boltzmann Institutes (LBI) and the Ludwig Boltzmann Research Groups (FG) at various locations in Austria. These institutions are established according to a strict selection procedure, initiate new research topics, can react flexibly to current social and scientific developments and conduct interdisciplinary pioneering research. At the same time, they offer scientists the freedom to try things out and think outside the box.

In 2020, the LBG was included in the new Research Funding Act (FoFinaG) as a “central research institution”. The FoFinaG names ten central research and research funding institutions that are guaranteed long-term, growth-oriented research funding by law. This gave LBG more long-term funding and planning security.

University of Vienna

The University of Vienna and the Ludwig Boltzmann Society signed a partnership agreement on 24 September 2020 for the joint continuation of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights. The two institutions are thus pooling their expertise in a sustainable manner and continuing to develop the LBI-GMR as the central interface between the academic research of the University of Vienna and the proven application-oriented human rights research and work of the LBI-GMR in the sense of joint excellence.

The close personal connection to the University of Vienna through Michael Lysander Fremuth, who is at the same time University Professor for Fundamental and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Scientific Director of the LBI-GMR, enables an ongoing exchange as well as synergies and diverse cooperations, especially with the Institute for Constitutional and Administrative Law under the direction of Executive Director Univ.-Prof. Ewald Wiederin.