Vienna to Become MEDem Headquarters

06.07.2026

The MEDem research infrastructure has been included in the ESFRI Roadmap 2026 and is establishing its headquarters at the University of Vienna under the leadership of Sylvia Kritzinger and Hajo Boomgaarden.

Supported by 15 countries, the network develops standards, interfaces, and digital tools to make data on elections, political parties, parliaments, governments, journalism, and political communication discoverable, comparable, and linkable. This inclusion is seen as a strong signal for democracy research in Europe and strengthens Austria as a research hub; participating locations include the universities of Amsterdam, Florence, Gothenburg and Katowice as well as the research institutes LUISS (Rome), GESIS (Cologne) and FORS (Lausanne). The goal is to provide a solid foundation for understanding democratic developments and evidence-based policy. Find out more here.