Paris Lodron University: awards presented to outstanding scientists
The Kurt Zopf Promotional Prize went to Benjamin Kneihs for his critical examination of the Austrian Covid measures. The Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (Plus) presented further prizes to outstanding Plus scientists.
SALZBURG. The Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (Plus) presented three prizes to “outstanding Plus scientists”:
Of the “Kurt Zopf Award for Scientific Publications” went among others to the constitutional lawyer Benjamin Kneihs for his critical examination of the Austrian Covid measures. The “Award for Outstanding Teaching” received, among others, the Anglicist Simone Pfenninger for her course on the subject of speech disorders. With the “Young Talent Award” Among others, the psychology student Dániel Kovács received an award for his dissertation on the subject of stress. Rector Hendrik Lehnert warmly congratulated all award winners.
Winners of the Kurt Zopf Prize:
Three researchers share the “Kurt Zopf Promotional Prize for Scientific Publications”, which is endowed with 10,000 euros. Since 2011, Plus has been awarding this prize annually for high-ranking scientific original publications by members of the university who have completed their habilitation, which have received a great deal of international attention and made the professional world sit up and take notice. The prize is named after the generous sponsor of Plus, Kurt Zopf.
The winners of the Kurt Zopf Prize 2021:
- Margit Reiter, professor of contemporary history, was honored for her monograph “The Former Ones. National Socialism and the Beginnings of the FPÖ” (2019). The book is the first to review the (early) history of the FPÖ and its relationship to National Socialism. The book, which received an above-average response from both experts and the media, was also nominated for the Austrian science book of the year in 2020.
- Benjamin Kneihs, Professor of Administrative and Constitutional Law, was nominated for the journal article “Selected Union and Constitutional Law Issues of Austrian Measures to Curb the Spread of the Covid-19 Virus” ( in: ZÖR – Journal for Public Law). In the study, the focus was not only on the much-discussed aspects such as the exit restrictions, but on the entire range of measures. The work broke new ground because the pandemic was a new challenge not only for society and politics, but also for the legal system.
- Jörg Paetzold, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, received the Kurt Zopf Prize for the journal article “The cross-generational causal effect of tax evasion” published in 2019 together with Wolfgang Frimmel and Martin Halla. Evidence from the commuter allowance in Austria”. This work on behavioral economic aspects in tax payment has led to an enormous amount of resonance in the professional world. It represents an article from Paetzold’s award-winning habilitation.
Award for excellent teaching
The teaching awards “Excellence in Teaching Awards” are aimed at excellent teaching in which central didactic principles and innovative teaching and learning methods are used.
Students and teachers of Plus are entitled to make suggestions. The winners are selected on the basis of student evaluations and a course concept by a jury appointed by the Vice Rector for Teaching. Each winning course will be awarded 1,000 euros.
Excellence in Teaching Award Winners:
- Simone Pfenninger, Associate Professor in the Department of English and American Studies for the seminar “Speech and language disorders”. The learning objective was to impart knowledge about the causes and symptoms of language acquisition and language development disorders as well as knowledge about different theoretical points of view.
- Sonja Janisch, Associate Professor at the Department of Private Law for the lecture “Private IT Law”. When it comes to legal questions about e-business, the design of a website, a social media presence, music exchange markets, etc., a special focus was placed on practical relevance and topicality.
- Katharina Maier and Elisabeth Steinhauser from the Department of Social and Economic Sciences for the exercise with the lecture “Methods in Accounting and Taxation”. One challenge of this course was to convey the wealth of relevant methods in a structured form to the students.
- Martin Geroldinger from the Department of Geoinformatics for the exercise “Introduction to Applied Statistics”. The course was designed to be “funny and serious” at the same time, according to feedback from one student.
48 dissertation projects submitted
With the Young Investigators Award, the Plus have been honoring the best dissertation projects at the university for several years. The aim of the “Young Investigators Award” is to promote young scientists. Submissions were possible in six subject groups (from the fields of natural and life sciences, law, humanities, data & analytical sciences, philosophy & theology, social sciences). From 48 submissions, the jury chose the winners of the respective topic group. They will receive prize money of 300 euros.
Winner of the Young Investigators Award 2022:
- Gudrun Becker: Narratological analysis based on the body-body paradigm: Lina Meruane and her “trilogy of illness”
- Karin Klieber: Macroeconomic Forecasts in the Post-Covid Era
- Ann-Kathrin Koopmann: Explaining nature: natural and life sciences
- Dániel Kovács: Steps towards a new and mature framework of stress and motivation. The work requirement resource (dis)stress motivation model 2.0
- Jana Pflaeging: Genre Development in Science Journalism: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the National Geographic Feature Article. 1915-1965-2015.
- Ingrid Vukusic: Effective solution of Diophantine problems related to S-unit equations
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