Oliver Bender is head of the working group ‘Man and Environment, Settlements’ at the Institute of interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck. He studied Geography in Erlangen and Bamberg, received his diploma and his PhD in geography from the University of Bamberg (1993, 1998) and his post-doc lecturing qualification (‘habilitation’) from the University of Innsbruck (2006). His research interests include landscape, regional and urban development. He acts as Austrian research coordinator in several COST Actions (A27 LANDMARKS, IS1007 Investigating Cultural Sustainability, TU1401 Renewable Energy and Landscape Quality), as the Austrian member of the Board and of the Advisory Group of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape (PECSRL), as coordinator of the Horizon 2020-MSCA-RISE Project Network Highlands.3 and as the scientific director of the cultural ethology ‘Matreier Gespräche’.
Oliver Bender
Armin Kratzer is an economic geographer and research associate at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck. In April 2020, he received his PhD in Geography from the University of Innsbruck on social networks of sustainability innovations in biosphere reserves in Austria and Switzerland. He has been leader and principal investigator in several national and international research projects on climate change adaptation, rural mobility, protected areas and sustainability transitions. In addition, his research interests lie in grassroots initiatives such as Transition Towns, permaculture initiatives or The Real Junkfood Project, addressing societal challenges such as peak oil, plastic pollution and food security. Since 2020, he has been a board member of the International Geographical Union’s Commission on Economic the Dynamics of Economic Spaces (CDES).
Armin Kratzer
Fernando Ruiz Peyré is a geographer and postdoc researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck. He studied in Mendoza, at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, and in Germany, at the University of Tübingen, and received his PhD from the University of Innsbruck. He has conducted research and teaching at the University of Innsbruck for 8 years. Since 2020 is he coordinator of the Horizon 2020-MSCA-RISE project Highlands.3. His main research interests are: Mountain Research, Social Geography, Rural Space and Natural Resources Research. Regional focus: Latin America, Argentina, Andean countries.
Fernando Ruiz Peyré