Who are we?
The Environmental Politics Research Group (EPRG) is based at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. The EPRG was established in 2024 to foster excellent research, teaching, and (science-policy-society) engagement related to global environmental agreement-making in the areas of ocean governance, biodiversity, conservation, and sustainable use of natural resources. We conceptualize agreement-making as encompassing actors, sites, and processes, focusing on how these are shaped by, reflect and have the potential to transform the intertwined global order of social, political and economic relations. In addition, we have a strong interest in how knowledge, science, data, and technology interact with and shape environmental politics. The EPRG is led by Professor Dr. Alice Vadrot and counts on a staff of twelve academics working in three different national and international projects.
Our research statement
The Environmental Politics Research Group (EPRG) at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna conducts sound, excellent, reflexive, relevant and internationally visible research spanning different actors, sites and processes of global environmental agreement-making. Our research strives to be creative, innovative and impactful within and beyond academia. We have a strong focus on empirical research, combining different qualitative and quantitative methods such as event ethnography, social network analysis, surveys, interviews, bibliometrics, oral histories, and text-mining. We approach global environmental politics as unfolding through practices, and social relations. We collect data in, and contributed to the understanding of several international agreements and negotiations such as the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

All the Latest: News, Events, Publications, and More
„Transformativer Wandel neu gedacht“ – Rückblick auf das Symposium der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW) zur Biodiversität
von Simon J. Fellinger und Margarita Hartlieb (c) Adobe Stock Am 30. Oktober 2025 kamen im Festsaal der ÖAW über 120 Stakeholder:innen aus Wissenschaft, Verwaltung, Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft
IPW Lecture with Henrik and Noelle Selin on November 20
We are excited to invite you to our IPW Lecture with the internationally renowned political scientists Henrik Selin (Boston University) and Noelle Selin (MIT) on November 20.
Workshop with Prof. Colin Hay
We are excited to annouce that the deadline for abstract submissions for the workshop “Discursive and Epistemic Selectivity in Global Environmental Negotiations” with Sciences Po Prof. Dr. Colin Hay and
Transformativer Wandel – Event zur Biodiversität in der ÖAW am 30. Oktober
Ein transformativer Wandel unserer Gesellschaft zur Erreichung globaler Umweltziele wird nicht nur von zahlreichen NGOs gefordert, sondern auch zunehmend von Wissenschafter:innen thematisiert. Doch was bedeutet ein solcher Wandel konkret in
Alice Vadrot receives prestigious Henderlein Prize
We are delighted to announce that Alice Vadrot has been awarded the 2025 Franco-German Henrik Enderlein Prize. The €10,000 research prize recognises outstanding social scientists under the age of 40
Hello World – New Website
We are happy to launch the new web site of the Environmental Politics Research Group at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. On this new



