Profile

Astrid Krisch is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Spatial Planning at TU Wien, affiliated with the Research Unit for Sociology and the Research Unit for Urban and Regional Research. She is also a Visiting Researcher at the Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation and an Early Career Research Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, University of Oxford. Her academic career spans research and teaching positions at different European institutions. She has held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford, taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of Vienna, and was a Visiting Scholar at the City Institute, York University in Toronto.

She received her doctorate in Spatial Planning from TU Wien in 2023. Her dissertation “Discursive Institutionalization of Urban Infrastructure Systems – Linking Discourses, Actors, and Institutions in Networked, Social, and Digital Infrastructure Planning”, analysed how urban infrastructure systems become institutionally stabilised through discourse, integrating planning theory, institutional theory, and political economy.

Her research examines socio-ecological transformation in urban and regional contexts, with a particular focus on infrastructure governance, social innovation, climate and health, and alternative economic development approaches.

Research Interests

• Just social-ecological transformation in cities and regions
• Urban infrastructure governance, including digital, social, and networked systems
• Social innovation, experimentation, and deliberative practices
• Climate, health, and urban planetary health
• Foundational economy, community wealth building, and post-growth approaches
• Participation, conflict mediation, and institutional change
• Inter- and transdisciplinary research methods in urban and regional studies