Andreas Novy is associate professor at Vienna University of Economic and Business. He is head of ISSET (Institute for Spatial and Social-Ecological Transformations) and president of the International Karl Polanyi Society (IKPS), founded in 2018 to promote a Viennese thought collective, that is inspired by Karl Polanyi and not the Austrians, including Hayek and Mises. Within the context of the IKPS, he is researching on contemporary transformations, linking social-ecological, geopolitical and socio-cultural transformations. In line with Polanyi’s analysis of the great transformation, he analyzes long-term transformations together with the current conjuncture, giving emphasis to economic imaginaries in promoting the current reactionary right. For his work on Karl Polanyi he received the Kurt-Rothschild-Award 2019 (together with B. Aulenbacher, R. Bärnthaler and V. Heimerl).
He has published extensively on Polanyi-inspired research, including Karl Polanyi. The Life and Works of an Epochal Thinker (eds. with B. Aulenbacher, M. Marterbauer, K. Polanyi Levitt and A. Thurnher, 2020, Vienna: Falter), Novy, A. (2022), The political trilemma of contemporary social-ecological transformation – lessons from Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation. Globalizations, 19(1), 59–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1850073) and A Polanyi-inspired perspective on social-ecological transformations of cities (with R. Bärnthaler and B. Stadelmann, Journal of Urban Affairs, 2023, 45(2), 117–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2020.1834404), on social-ecological transformations, including The power to transform structures: Power complexes and the challenges for realising a wellbeing economy. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1) (with R. Bärnthaler, L. Arzberger, A. Krisch and H. Volmary, 2024, 558. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03065-7) and Bärnthaler, R., Novy, A., & Plank, L. (2021) and The Foundational Economy as a Cornerstone for a Social–Ecological Transformation (with R. Bärnthaler and L. Plank). Sustainability, 13(18), 10460. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810460 and in the field of urban and regional development, including Urban and Regional Development Trajectories in Contemporary Capitalism (eds. with F. Martinelli and F. Moulaert, 2013, London: Routledge).
Besides founding the IKPS he has been involved in knowledge production and dissemination at the interface of science, civil society and policymaking. He was head of the Austrian Green Foundation (2010-2018)), co-founder and scientific director of the Viennese Paulo Freire Center (2004-2009) and co-organizer of two Good Life for All-Congresses in Vienna (2015 and 2017). He is deputy head of the Research Institute for Spatial and Real Estate Economics, member of the board of directors for the Competence Center for Infrastructure Economics, Public Services and Social Provisioning at TU Vienna, and member of the Foundational Economy Collective (FEC). He is Coordinating Lead Author in the Chapter on Transformation Pathways of the AAR2 (“2nd Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change”), in charge of introducing a perspective of more-than-climate transformations, project leader of ACRP15 “Q2-PATHWAYS – Quantifying Qualitative Transformation Pathways” and he was Coordinating Lead Author in and editor of the recently finalized APCC Special Report 2022 on “Structural Conditions of Climate-friendly Living”. He has participated in several European Framework Programme-projects (Urspic, Singocom, Demologos, Social Polis, ImPRovE).