Executive Board
Composed of the President, three Scientific Vice-Presidents and the Executive Vice-President, the Executive Board coordinates the organisation’s activities and is in charge of defining the FWF's strategic objectives as well as developing and furthering its funding programmes. In addition, the Executive Board takes part in negotiations with Austrian and European research policymakers, cooperates with universities and other scientific institutions in Austria and abroad, and represents the FWF at the national and international level. The members of the Executive Board are members of the Assembly of Delegates and of the FWF Board. The Scientific Vice-Presidents are each in charge of a specialist department at the FWF.
The President ensures the FWF’s external representation, chairs the FWF Board and the Executive Board and assumes the direction of the FWF offices. The President may be deputized in all of his or her tasks by a member of the Executive Board.
President
Christof Gattringer
Particle physicist Christof Gattringer was a professor at the University of Graz since 2005 and Vice-Rector for Research and Junior Researchers’ Promotion since 2019. He has conducted research, for example, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and at the University of Washington in Seattle
Executive Vice-President
Ursula Jakubek
Ursula Jakubek has been the Executive Vice-President of the FWF Executive Board since June 2021. Prior to joining the FWF, she served as the Director of Finance and Human Resources at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and before that was Authorised Officer and Global Head of Finance & Accounting at Speech Processing Solutions GmbH and worked many years for Philips Austria. The native of Linz studied business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Vice-President of Research — Natural Sciences and Technology
Georg Kaser
University of Innsbruck
Research Center Climate - Cryosphere and Atmosphere
Georg Kaser is one of the most influential climate researchers in the world. He has collaborated twice as lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the World Climate Council of the United Nations, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Kaser is a member of numerous international scientific organisations, including an Honorary Member of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences. Moreover, he has been a full member of the Division of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) since 2017.
Vice-President of Research — Humanities and Social Sciences
Gerlinde Mautner
Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU)
Department of Business Communication
After serving on the FWF Board from 2008 to 2016, Gerlinde Mautner became the FWF’s Vice-President for the Humanities and Social Sciences in September 2016. With a background in linguistics, she teaches and conducts research as a full professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU).
Vice-President of Research — Biology and Medical Sciences
Ellen Zechner
University of Graz
Institute of Molecular Biosciences
Ellen L. Zechner has been the FWF’s Vice-President for Biology and Medicine since September 2016. From 2011 to 2016, she served as a member of the FWF Board. As a molecular biologist, she conducts research at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. Zechner has a great deal of international experience, including work at Harvard University, Rockefeller University and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. Her research mainly focuses on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial infections.
