View from Schareck

I am currently off for a few days, skiing in Heiligenblut, hoping to leave winter behind me then and being ready for spring.

One the one hand: It’s beautiful. As the altitude goes up to 2.700m there is enough snow and the landscape is breathtaking. One can go freeriding (if one dares) and feel skiing spirit like 50 years ago (presumably). On the other hand: Heligenblut is a symbol for all the burning problems of Austrian winter tourism. No natural snow in the village at all, some hotels and lifts closed, lack of capital, raising costs for snow-making systems have lead to economic shortages that have become existential.

Retrospect

Good Scientific Practice

The campaign against Alexandra Föderl Schmid (whom I have the privilege to know personally, in particular, due to here presence at UNIVIE’s summer discourse), triggered a lot of debates and questions that need further analysis.

Dr. Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, then editor in chief at Der Standard at UNIVIE’s summerschool in 2015

© https://shs.univie.ac.at/sommerdiskurs/archiv/sommerdiskurs-2015/fotos-2015/

In my view, two aspects are specifically important: First, it has become more and more evident that allegations of academic fraud, in particular alleged plagiarism, can be and are indeed used as instruments of (political) propaganda by people who are neither competent nor interested in scientific discourse. Second, the existing bodies of self control - both in science and in journalism - are too marginalized in these propaganda battles and need more public attention.

It’s (once again) worth mentioning that Austria has institutions - both in science and in journalism - that help in and monitor professional behavior. In journalism in particular the “Presserat”; in science the Austrian Agency for scientific integrity (OEAWI). OEAWI is a non profit orgnaisations with all major Austrian universities and research organisations as its members and hosts an independent commission consisting of senior, international domain experts who are carefully, independently and together analyzing cases of alleged academic misbehavior. I am the only Austrian member in the Commission (which is a feature, not a bug, as my role is primarily to advise on specificities of Austrian law) and I know from several years of personal experience how difficult and ambivalent many of the cases can be. Every single case needs full attention and best possible management as such procedures imply existential threats for many of the involved and touch fundamentals of research and research ethics.

Juristenball

There’s a funny tradition in Vienna that many professional organisations (doctors, pharmacists, coffee makers etc.) have their own ball events. Last saturday in carnival it’s traditionally the lawyers meeting for this occasion (“Juristenball”) in the imperial palace (“Hofburg”). I was there for the first time after many years and met literally hundreds of colleagues, including many (ex-)students.

As this year’s motto was “Vienna meets Tokyo”, Austria’s minister of Justice, Dr. Alma Zadić, did not only give an opening speech, but also tapped formally a barrel of Sake.

Ars Boni

We had a “holiday edition” of ars boni this week. Boris Kandov, working with us at the department, is also - as JusProfi - a very successful podcaster and YouTube host. He openly shared his lessons learned on his journey and the reasons for his success.

This is how the “studio” looked like on my side, this time (the pot is there for reasons of perspective :-) ).

Prospect

Macau

I will travel- first time in my life - to Macau next week. It’s for a conference on AI regulation in China and Europe. I will see Rostam J Neuwirth - an Austrian lawyer working as a professor of law at the University of Macau. again. My topic will be “What is a risk based approach and what is it for in (European) AI regulation?”. I will be on a panel dealing with the (Need for) Novel & Interdisciplinary Regulatory Approaches on February 22.

For this reason I am currently reading (just like vereyone else around me) very intensely the (almost?) final version of the AI act that was leaked in LinkedIn recently. (BTW: Isn’t it weird that it has become a completly normal activity for an academic to chase leaks?) I learned now that the AI act has has got a definition of risk: “risk’ means the combination of the probability of an occurrence of harm and the severity of that harm;”. I will argue in my presentation that the often cited and often praised ‘risk-based approach’ is neither helpful nor sufficient.

Martin Selmayr

Prof. Selmayr’s involvement at UNIVIE’s activities is making further progress. The joint seminar will be announced on UFIND shortly. Most likely, the joint seminar session will happen on May 27th - just in case you want to put this into your agenda already now.

One can already find another course of Martin Selmayr on UFIND “Direkt aus Brüssel: Aktuelle Fragen des Europarechts” that I would most warmly recommend to everyone interested in EU law and politics.

UG-Reform

The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research has published a reform draft of the existing laws on Universities.

The draft suggests further rules and definitions on research integrity, to be implemented into the law on higher education quality assurance (“Hochschul-Qualitätssicherungsgesetz”) that read as follows:

“§ 2a. (1) Integrität im wissenschaftlichen und künstlerischen Studien-, Lehr- und Forschungsbereich an Bildungseinrichtungen gemäß
§ 1 Abs. 1 umfasst über die Einhaltung guter wissenschaftlicher und künstlerischer Praxis hinaus eine Kultur der wissenschaftlichen und künstlerischen Redlichkeit und Qualität. Sie bestimmt das Handeln der an diesen Bildungseinrichtungen beteiligten Personen in Wissenschaft und Forschung, Entwicklung und Erschließung der Künste sowie Lehre und Studium.

       (2) Gute wissenschaftliche oder künstlerische Praxis ist die Einhaltung rechtlicher Regelungen, ethischer Normen und des aktuellen Erkenntnisstands des jeweiligen Faches im Rahmen der Aufgaben und Ziele der jeweiligen Bildungseinrichtung. Die Nichteinhaltung guter wissenschaftlicher oder künstlerischer Praxis ist wissenschaftliches oder künstlerisches Fehlverhalten.

[…]”

OEAWI will (most likely) deliver a comment on this draft and I am one of those currently working on our contribution. Everyone can contribute to the debate until February 21.

Media Coverage

The Austrian Court of Audit (Rechnungshof) published a - very critical - opinion on some aspects of the Government’s (non-) media strategy and ist enormous costs. The report triggered public debate with very clear statements.

There is an interesting side aspect in the report that was not so much in focus yet (page 88): The Federal Ministry of Climate Protection has been responsible for 71 (!) different websites with different layouts, content management systems, partners etc.; some of them hardly known to anyone.

This is interesting for many reasons - one them is the following: There is indeed a law on IT-consolidation from 2012 that should hinder such developments and guarantee a joint IT-strategy. However, this law has never become relevant at all: It forsees that all relevant details should be regulated in a ministry-regulation on IT-strategy. However, since 2012, not a single member of the government has ever written such a regulation at all. It’s very much like a textbook case of an incomplete legal rule.

I was interviewed on this on Thursday; presumably, my interview will be broadcast on Friday, February 16, in at least one of the radio news formats (Mittagsjournal etc.).

Daisy

can already smell spring coming.

© Felix Forgó

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)