Current Research Projects
Social Sciences with a focus on economic education
Impact of railway liberalisation on railway workers
After 30 years of liberalization policy on the part of the EU Commission, a wide range of data, experience, and developments are available from which to derive sound scientific findings. The research aims to measure and evaluate the structural, organizational, and working environment changes for employees in rail passenger transport as a result of the EU Commission's liberalization policy pushed forward in recent years. Thirty guided interviews with train attendants and train drivers will provide information on the advantages and disadvantages of the associated developments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The interviews will focus on the changes in employment conditions and training standards brought about by the liberalization processes in the European railway sector. The subsequent data collection and analysis will be carried out sequentially for each of the three countries under investigation. By focusing on employment conditions, which have been relatively little researched to date, the project aims to contribute to the discussion on the pros and cons of liberalization processes and the introduction of competition in the European railway sector with the aim of shifting transport from road and air to rail.
PI: Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner | Staff: Daniel von Orloff | Duration: April 2025 - March 2028 | Funding: Vienna Chamber of Labour
Social-Inclusive Financial Education. Development, Testing, and Evaluation of Competency Framework-Based Interdisciplinary Teaching-Learning Arrangements
The project “Social-Inclusive Financial Education. Development, Testing, and Evaluation of Competency Framework-Based Interdisciplinary Teaching-Learning Arrangements” (abbreviated as SoFi) aims to develop high-quality teaching-learning arrangements for socially inclusive financial education. These arrangements are designed for core subjects in economic education and mathematics instruction. The project goes beyond formal life phase models by incorporating both a life situation approach and fundamental mathematical competencies.
The heterogeneity-sensitive arrangements, which primarily target vulnerable groups in adolescence, are formatively evaluated using a pre-post design at a minimum of two schools per location and subsequently revised. Building on this, online training sessions for teachers will be developed, focusing on practical school applications and offered nationwide.
The primary goal of the project is to popularize this new type of financial education offering in cooperation with practice partners.
PI: Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner | Staff: Franziska Heimrich | Project Partners: Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd, Leuphana University, University of Münster, University of Bielefeld | Duration: February 2025 - January 2028 | Funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Effects of liberalisation in European rail passenger transport
A technically functional, attractively priced and geographically comprehensive rail system, is considered to be the shift to rail as a key element of the "European Green Deal". However, despite all the environmental and climate policy ambitions, the turnaround in transport, with a clear prioritisation of rail as a mode of transport, especially in freight and international rail passenger transport, has not materialised. A six-country study (Austria, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland) examines the impact of the European Union's liberalisation of rail transport on the rail sector. Not least because of the PSO Regulation 2016/2338, the European Commission hopes that the expansion of commercially awarded or operated services will not only increase efficiency, customer orientation and innovation, but also improve quality and prices to the benefit of employees, rail passengers and companies. At the same time, the question arises as to whether tendering competition in the rail sector might also entail a particularly high degree of state administration, coordination and control, for example when it comes to increasing train frequencies, extending rail services geographically or adjusting the tariff structure.
Pls: Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner I Project management: Daniel von Orloff | Duration: March 2024 – February 2026 | Funding: Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte, European Transport Workers‘ Federation (ETF), Eisenbahn- und Verkehrsgewerkschaft (EVG), SEV - Gewerkschaft des Verkehrspersonals, mobifair e.V. - Verein Fairer Wettbewerb in der Mobilitätsbranche, vida
MonitorCE – Feasibility study „Monitor Civic Education“
The planned monitoring of civic education aims to record the landscape of civic education in Germany on a regular basis. The indicators collected for this will be based on regular data collection and analyzed in a time series. The goal is to provide an instrument which captures trends and enables the analysis and identification of general patterns. To present a viable basis for data-based decisions to political, administrative and civil-society actors the monitor aims to representatively map the landscape of civic education as well as its development. The team based in cologne is focusing on educational offers in teacher training.
PIs: Prof. Dr. Tim Engartner, Prof. Dr. Hermann Josef Abs, Prof. Dr. Reinhold Hedtke, Prof. Dr. Monika Oberle | Project management: Patrik Geloneck, Marie Heijens, Dr. Simon Niklas Hellmich, Valeriia, Hulkovych, Lucy Huschle, Stella Wasenitz | Duration: October 2021 – March 2026 | Funding: Federal Agency for Civic Education
Projectwebsite