The Canada Awards – A Long Tradition
For 23 years the Canadian Studies Centre of the University of Innsbruck has been celebrating the "scientific harvest" of the current year with a special event in November, framed by music and lectures and recalling the North American "Thanksgiving" celebrations. This event is meant to present and honor promising young scholars of the University of Innsbruck who have dealt with Canadian Studies topics in their scientific work (thesis, article) or have collaborated with Canadian scholars.
The long-time director of the CSC, Prof. Dr. Ursula Moser, who stepped down on Jan. 1, 2022 after 25 years of service, has always been convinced of the potential and the importance of promoting young academics and has given priority to promotion initiatives ever since the founding of the Centre in 1997: "Without young academics, research would be taken ad absurdum. To achieve progress, any discovery, any thought must be constantly ‘re-thought’, questioned and expanded, and for that very reason we need our young people."
The CSC thus addresses one of the central concerns of the University of Innsbruck, as the Vice Rector for Research, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Tanzer, has stressed on many occasions: "The work of young scientists is central to the development of research. Their creative ideas are crucial for innovation in science. The University of Innsbruck supports the early phase in the academic career with various funding programmes. On the one hand, there are scholarships for doctoral students, on the other, there are prizes such as the 23-year young Canada Awards. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Ursula Moser for this initiative which is of great importance for the promotion of research!"
Although the COVID 19 pandemic has twice prevented the award ceremony from taking place in its usual form, it has not reduced the attractiveness of Canadian topics and the scientific exchange between the two countries. This is evidenced by the three prize winners of 2021, who join the long line of previous winners from the most diverse human and natural sciences disciplines and who like them contribute significantly to the expansion and enrichment of the scientific network that connects the University of Innsbruck with Canada.
Current Award Winners
This year's winners have presented projects from three completely different fields of research, whose concepts and ways of execution have convinced the evaluators: Veronika Riedl, MA, a sociologist, won in the category "Canadian Studies" (i.e. content-related to Canada), while Svetlana Abramova, PhD MSc, from the Institute of Computer Science and Maurice Mohr, PhD, from the Institute of Sport Science were successful in the category "Scientific Cooperation".
Category: Canadian Studies
Veronika Riedl, MA
In her mid-twenties only and Tyrolean-born, Veronika Riedl can look back on international experience and a wide range of high-performance scholarships, awards, and academic publications. In addition to a Bachelor's degree in French, she completed a BA in Sociology in 2017, as a double degree from the University of Innsbruck and the Université Paris-Descartes, where she had studied for one year. During her Master studies in sociology she spent the academic year 2018/19 at the Université du Québec à Montréal and returned to Canada soon after on a travel grant from the Association for Canadian Studies in German-speaking Countries (GKS) to conduct fieldwork in Toronto for her Master's thesis. This thesis – "Urban Resistance in the Global City - Responses to Socio-Spatial Polarization in Toronto" – was awarded the 2021 Canada Award. Veronika Riedl focuses her sociological research on marginalised, (often) migrant residents of Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood, applying ethnographic methods such as observation and so-called moving interviews. Her aim is to discover to what extent city dwellers react to socio-spatial polarisations and to what extent ‘small-scale‘ social resistance is possible.
Category: Scientific Cooperation
Svetlana Abramova, PhD MSc
As everyone knows, travelling is not strictly necessary in the field of IT, but in Svetlana Abramova’s case internationality is at the heart of her education. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Computer Science, or more precisely in the Security and Privacy Lab of the University of Innsbruck, but she graduated with a BSc in Business Economics in Russia in 2010 and completed her MSc in Information Systems at the University of Münster two years later. She subsequently gained professional experience at zeb consulting and the Information Security Lab of the University of Münster, which eventually led her to Innsbruck. In Innsbruck she completed her PhD in Computer Science in 2019 and she currently works at Prof. Rainer Böhme’s research centre. The number of her publications in the fields of cryptocurrency, cryptoeconomics, and information security and privacy has been growing steadily since 2016. With her article "Bits Under the Mattress: Understanding Different Risk Perceptions and Security Behaviors of Crypto-Asset Users", she presents a paper written in collaboration with researchers from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). On the basis of a quantitative study, she explores the social behaviour of crypto-users, dividing them into three groups and making practical suggestions for future user-specific security precautions. An inspiring teaser of this highly topical research can be viewed on YouTube.
Maurice Mohr, PhD
Although in his early thirties only, Maurice Mohr has a long-standing connection to Canada. After graduating with a BA in Sport and Technology from the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg in 2012, the junior scientist from Germany moved to the University of Calgary, where he first completed his Master's and then, in 2018, his PhD in Kinesiology with a special focus on biomechanics. Under the supervision of Dr. Benno Nigg, he worked in the Calgary Human Performance Laboratory and specialised in (and published on) the rehabilitation after knee injuries. Other relevant publications followed. In 2019, the self-declared mountain sports enthusiast began to work in Innsbruck as an assistant professor at the Department of Sport Sciences, where he is investigating how sports injuries can be prevented through clever and precautionary training. As knee problems often result from unsuitable shoe equipment, Maurice Mohr is looking into possible optimisation strategies for running shoes, and he does so in a particularly fruitful research project in collaboration with his alma mater in Calgary.
To sum up: Be it the capacity of marginalised groups to participate in shaping urban living spaces, the user-oriented response of computer scientists to the individual needs of crypto-investors or the development of sportswear that is as gentle on the body as possible – all three award winners have one thing in common: In addition to their remarkable international experience, they conceive science as a response to real-life questions, with concrete recommendations for solutions. In keeping with the spirit of the University of Innsbruck, they "create" "knowledge" and at the same time build significant bridges into the world of practice. They definitely do not live in the symbolic ivory tower.
Congratulations to this outstanding trio and our best wishes for an exciting future!
The Award-Winning Publications
Veronika Riedl, MA
Informal Resistance in the Global City Responses to Socio-Spatial Polarization in Toronto
Svetlana Abramova, PhD MSc
Bits Under the Mattress: Understanding Different Risk Perceptions and Security Behaviors of Crypto-Asset Users
Maurice Mohr, PhD
Progress in running footwear science to match shoe features to the runner’s skill level. A mixed-methods approach and collaboration between Innsbruck and Calgary
Organized by the Canadian Studies Centre
Supported by the City of Innsbruck
