Faculty for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education
The Faculty for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education (IFF) is one of four Faculties at the University of Klagenfurt. The founding principle of the IFF is to link scholarship to contemporary social issues and problems. Reflecting this, the Faculty’s structure is built around the social field of the research rather than in line with individual scientific disciplines. Research work is focused on questions concerning societies’ relationship with public goods such as health, environment, spatial resources, technology, education, science, politics and culture at large. Research, teaching and continuing education at the IFF pursue dual aims – one of which is social and the other scholarly. Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity form the basis of both the theory and practice of the IFF’s research concept. This means that researchers from various disciplines, experts and actors from various professional fields work together in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects and research areas focussing, among others, upon social, historical and systems science contexts. The projects are intervention-oriented. To intervene successfully, an understanding of the system- and organisational aspects of the problem is of central importance. Work undertaken by the Faculty therefore focuses upon encouraging well-reflected decision-making both in an individual and collective context. Concrete social problems and issues are addressed. The IFF contributes to the solution of problems facing societies on one hand through research and teaching and on the other through consulting, intervention and extramural continuing education activities. History IFF was founded in 1979 as the ‘Interuniversity Research Institute for Distance Education’ (in German: ‘Interuniversitäres Forschungsinstitut für Fernstudien’ or ‘IFF’). Since that time, the IFF has undergone several transformations. On one hand, the institute’s character has been altered by its growth during that period, and on the other hand, changes have taken account of evolving developments in higher education policy and the need for the Faculty to adapt to these. IFF was founded as an inter-university institute with the aim of creating connections both between and across disciplines. During the founding years, the guiding vision involved “allowing research and education to have an impact ‘beyond’ the traditional universities”. The ‘Interuniversity Research Institute for Distance Education (IFF)’ was founded jointly by eight universities. In 1988, the IFF had premises in Klagenfurt, Bregenz, Graz, St. Pölten, Stadtschlaining and Vienna. Ten years later, the IFF was serving more than 1,000 distance learning students via study centres in Klagenfurt, Bregenz and Vienna. In addition, the IFF developed new courses for Austria-wide teacher training programmes and began to establish its own research foci, centred on themes such as the environment, peace studies, social learning, regional development or technology and scientific research. In 1989 a conflict arose between the institute and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, concerning the direction taken by the IFF and its future development. The crisis was brought to an end with the re-establishment of the IFF in 1992 as the "Interuniversity Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education". In the context of Austria’s university reform programme in 2002, the closure of all existing inter-university institutes in Austria was