Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies
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Country Profile – Austria 2022-2023
No full textThis report deals with a broad spectrum of different areas of social protection. It summarises the main system features, policy developments and challenges for each area and presents some key data. Overall, recent policy developments provide a mixed picture. More comprehensive and structural reforms address very specific design elements of social protection schemes or are limited to a relatively small number of policy areas. At the same time, a series of temporary and one-off measures have been decided to deal with the consequences of strongly increasing consumer price inflation
The role of primary care during the pandemic: shared experiences from providers in five European countries
Get PDFBackground
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated wide-ranging adaptations to the organisation of health systems, and primary care is no exception. This article aims to collate insights on the role of primary care during the pandemic. The gained knowledge helps to increase pandemic preparedness and resilience.
Methods
The role of primary care during the pandemic in five European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy) was investigated using a qualitative approach, namely case study, based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews. In total, 31 interviews were conducted with primary care providers between June and August 2022. The five country case studies were subjected to an overarching analysis focusing on successful strategies as well as gaps and failures regarding pandemic management in primary care.
Results
Primary care providers identified disruptions to service delivery as a major challenge emerging from the pandemic which led to a widespread adoption of telehealth. Despite the rapid increase in telehealth usage and efforts of primary care providers to organise face-to-face care delivery in a safe way, some patient groups were particularly affected by disruptions in service delivery. Moreover, primary care providers perceived a substantial propagation of misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines among the population, which also threatened patient-physician relationships. At the same time, primary care providers faced an increased workload, had to work with insufficient personal protective equipment and were provided incongruous guidelines from public authorities. There was a consensus among primary care providers that they were mostly sidelined by public health policy in the context of pandemic management. Primary care providers tackled these problems through a diverse set of measures including home visits, implementing infection control measures, refurbishing used masks, holding internal meetings and relying on their own experiences as well as information shared by colleagues.
Conclusion
Primary care providers were neither well prepared nor the focus of initial policy making. However, they implemented creative solutions to the problems they faced and applying the learnings from the pandemic could help in increasing the resilience of primary care. Attributes of an integrated health system with a strong primary care component proved beneficial in addressing immediate effects of the pandemic
Wissenschaftsskepsis
No full textKatrin Auel und Johannes Starkbaum vom Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS) gehören zum Autor/inn/enteam, das im Auftrag des BMBWF die Ursachen für Wissenschafts- und Demokratieskepsis in Österreich untersucht hat. Im Interview erklären Sie mehr dazu
Networks of action situations in social–ecological systems: current approaches and potential futures
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First report on monitoring ERA action implementation at national level
Get PDFGender equality has been one of ERA’s priorities for more than a decade. In 2021 most Member States and Associated Countries renewed and reinforced their commitment to gender equality by endorsing the Ljubljana Declaration. With the Ljubljana Declaration, the main stakeholder in R&I (EC, MS/AC) agreed on the directions of further development: to address gender-based violence, to move from a gender oriented to an intersectional approach to gender equality and to focus on GEPs as the most significant instrument to achieve sustainable progress towards gender equality in R&I.
The commitment to ERA Action 5 has been expressed by a written statement from MS/AC. Compared to the previous ERA period (2015-2020), there is now a more detailed description provided by the European Commission of what is expected from Member States which are committed to pursue gender equality and inclusiveness. However, as there is no requirement to formulate a national action plan as in the previous ERA period, there is only limited information available regarding MS/AC priorities, objectives and planned or implemented measures. The situation resulting from the comprehensive gender equality goal formulated in ERA Action 5 and the lack of comparable data is highly complex and calls for an accompanying monitoring and continued development of a common gender equality discourse. On the one hand, it is important to know more about the gender equality objectives and policies formulated at national level as well as how concepts are used (e.g. gender, intersectionality). On the other hand, it is necessary to have moredetailed information about policies implemented at national level as well as related outcomes. A policy discourse based on this information may support the development of a common understanding of gender equality concepts and objectives. Furthermore, a monitoring of policy implementation allows to identify good practices at national level which supports exchange of experiences and mutual learning. GENDERACTIONplus proposes qualitative indicators for a monitoring of ERA Action 5 implementation focusing on the following dimensions: Commitment to gender equality and inclusiveness; formulation of gender equality objectives; gender equality measures planned and implemented; availability of a monitoring of policy implementation
The Role of Natural Gas in Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis for Major Gas-Producing Countries
Get PDFSince global warming has become a serious threat and GHG emissions are one of the main causes of it, analyzing the interactions between variables related to climate change has gained importance. This study investigates the nexus of per capita CO2 emissions, per capita real GDP or income, per capita natural gas consumption, urban population, and trade openness by examining the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for a panel of selected gas-producing countries over the period 1990–2020. To these data, slope homogeneity test, Granger causality in panels, stationarity tests, and cointegration tests are applied. A particular focus is on procedures that enable cross-sectional dependence. Admitting slope heterogeneity, the estimators provide mixed results. The findings, however, do provide evidence in favor of the EKC hypothesis in at least some of our sample countries. Furthermore, there are important policy implications that must be taken into consideration. This includes investing in clean technologies to reduce emissions and accelerating
reform of fossil fuel subsidies
The Drama of Responsible Research and Innovation: The Ups and Downs of a Policy Concept
Get PDFThis contribution addresses the question why Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is facing problems to succeed as concept for research and innovation policy in the European Commission, despite the EC’s 20 years of history of funding research activities and coordination and support actions that address science and society relations. Our analysis highlights four interrelated elements that contribute to the instability of RRI as policy concept, i.e. semantic, legal, financial and institutional fragility. We use Sabatier’s advocacy coalition approach (1998) to explain how these elements of fragility developed and how the ups and downs of RRI as policy concept played out. We identify three opposing advocacy coalitions with regards to RRI and analyze their belief systems and resources
