Foreign Policy Lab (FPL)

About

The Foreign Policy Lab is dedicated to research, teaching and knowledge transfer (third mission) in the field of national foreign policy and international relations. In the area of research, the Lab endeavours to improve and consolidate the infrastructure for basic and applied research at the Innsbruck location, in particular to enable the training of doctoral students and to publish the results of research in quality-assured and internationally visible journals (WoS, etc.). In terms of content, the lab will focus on the following six research agendas in the medium to long term:

1. Austrian foreign and security policy

This area forms the core of the lab and a unique selling point of the Innsbruck location in the Austrian university landscape. In addition to the Handbook on Austrian Foreign Policy (2023, Springer VS), the lab focuses on the survey project on the knowledge and attitudes of the Austrian population in the field of foreign and world policy. The Austrian Foreign Policy Panel Project (AFP3) is conducting three waves of surveys (initially until 2025) in cooperation with the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA). In the longer term, the emerging research network on Austria's foreign and security policy will be used to submit an application for an interdisciplinary FWF research group on this topic.

2. Small States and Grand Strategy

Research into the development of basic foreign policy strategies, so-called grand strategies, has so far neglected the policies of smaller states. However, especially for states with limited resources and greater vulnerability, there is a need to develop strategies to harmonise goals, (limited) means and ways. The Lab aims to investigate why small states develop such grand strategies and how they do so. This research agenda is to be realised through funding from the FWF (individual project).

3. International control of nuclear power

Research on this topic has a long tradition at the Innsbruck site. Doctoral students in particular are focussing on this topic.

4. International intelligence co-operation and foreign policy

Research in the field of intelligence studies is not yet very advanced, both theoretically and methodologically, and has little or no connection with the discipline of international relations. The lab aims to close this gap by means of an individual FWF project to analyse intelligence cooperation between Israel and Austria in the period 1970-1990.

5. Solidarity in World Ordering

Until now, research has only marginally addressed the nature and impact of solidarity in the context of international organisations. Martin Senn and Markus Kornprobst (external member, Diplomatic Academy of Vienna) want to address this gap both conceptually and empirically as part of a special issue of a specialised journal.