TEAM
DEEPEN supports universities and research institutions in Southeast Europe (SEE) in navigating the dual challenge of aligning with EU policies and implementing digital transformation. Through tailored co-creative solutions, we promote research capacities, academic excellence and international cooperation.
DR. ANDREA KÖLBEL
As a social and economic scientist, Andrea Kölbel is specifically interested in innovation and transformation processes in education and science. She holds a doctorate in human geography from the University of Oxford and an MBA from the Central European University in Budapest. As a research associate at the Freie Universität Berlin, she helped to set up international university collaborations and taught on the topics of sustainability, globalisation and forced migration. Previously, she served as an education officer for the UN refugee agency and was in charge of planning, implementing and evaluating education programmes in countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Andrea Kölbel has been working for the Institute for Innovation and Technology since 2018. She is responsible for projects aiming to promote early career researchers, digital solutions for refugees and other international students as well as scientific policy advice in times of crisis (Crisis Science Project). As head of the "New Knowledge Networks" group, which was newly founded in 2022, she provides strategic advice on key issues of education and research policy, including open science, data literacy and digital skills, and accompanies co-creative learning processes at the interfaces between science, politics and society.
DR. CORNELIA
VAN SCHERPENBERG
Cornelia van Scherpenberg is a scientific advisor at VDI/VDE-IT and its Institute for Innovation and Technology (iit). Trained in Indo-European and cognitive linguistics, she received her PhD in neurolinguistics at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. As an expert in science policy her work sits at the intersection of digital education, AI, and researcher careers. Alongside her doctorate, she served as deputy spokesperson of the Max Planck PhDnet and on the board of the N² network, advocating for fair career conditions in German academia. As part of #FactoryWisskomm and the Crisis Science Project, she advised the Federal Ministry of Education and Research on national strategies for science communication and crisis-resilient, evidence-based policymaking. Recently she has been co-leading the Horizon Europe-funded project SECURE and the strategic development of the large national funding program for advancing digital education, “Mein Bildungsraum”.
DOMINIK THEIS
Dominik Theis is a senior scientific advisor for educational technologies and an independent consultant for strategic communication and organizational development. He works at the nexus of digital transformation, educational justice, and technological innovation. His focus lies in designing digital learning spaces, fostering strategic networks, and developing open and resilient educational ecosystems.
Previously, he worked at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, where he was responsible for key aspects of the “Mein Bildungsraum” project. At Wikimedia Deutschland, he led projects promoting open education and coordinated the Bündnis Freie Bildung (Alliance for Open Education). Theis studied political science and international relations in Mannheim, Berlin, Brussels, and Madrid. He is actively engaged in voluntary initiatives promoting diversity in education and society.
GERDHARD KASNECI
Gerdhard Kasneci studied Psychology at the University of Tirana as well as Social Sciences and Cultural and Religious Studies at Ruhr University Bochum and Humboldt University of Berlin, where he completed his Master’s thesis in 2021 on the refugee policyof Germany. He gained his first professional experience as an International Parliamentary Fellow in the German Bundestag, before working for several years at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the fields of education, integration, and social policy. Since 2021, he has been working as a project officer for the project management agency VDI/VDE-IT in the department of education and science, where he coordinates federal funding programs such as the German national educational infrastructure project Mein Bildungsraum. His main areas of expertise lie in the analysis and preparation of project data as well as in the optimization of digital processes in funding management.
DR. BRIGITTE ECKER
Dr. Brigitte Ecker studied business administration at JKU Linz, Austria. After several years in the business sector, she joined Joanneum Research – Centre for Economic and Innovation Research Vienna in 2004, in 2013 the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), being head of the research group “Innovation, Education and Sustainability” from 2014. In 2016 she founded WPZ Research. She is lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten and Technicum Wien. Brigitte Ecker is experienced in coordinating and leading project consortia, among them the Erasmus+ /FLC projects BeyondScale (BeyondScale) and the Austrian Research and Technology report (Österreichischer Forschungs- und Technologiebericht 2023-2026) since 2018. She was lead of the expert team of the HEInnovate Background Report (2019), expert in the LMRO initiative and coordinator of the LMRO international seminars 2020-2022 (Labour Market Relevance and Outcomes (LMRO) in Higher Education in Austria) and a large variety of ongoing national and international projects.
DR. VERENA RÉGENT
Dr. Verena Régent studied sociology and social economics at Johannes Kepler University Linz and the University of Helsinki. From 2011 onwards, she worked in research and consulting companies, specialising in the acquisition and management of third-party funded research projects at the interface of social sciences and new technologies.
Between 2016 and 2021, she served as Senior Lecturer at Lauder Business School, where she promoted interdisciplinary, project-based learning through various student research projects. Within the framework of the Peacebell for Vienna project, she conducted expert interviews with 20 historians and peace researchers. This project was highlighted as an example of “good teaching” in the Austrian Atlas of Good Teaching.
Since 2020, she has acted as an external expert for the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission in the area of Disaster-Resilient Societies. She has been a Senior Researcher at WPZ since 2021, focusing on higher education research, including skill development, researchers’ careers, knowledge and technology transfer, and inclusion.
Currently, she leads the Erasmus+ projects GET-AHED (Green Education & Transition – A Higher Education online Digital Buddy) and CLOUD-HED (Disaster Resilience in Higher Education Systems via a Cloud University Model). In addition, she was senior researcher of the project „Innovative Hochschule“, coordinated the LMRO international seminars (2020–2022) https://www.wpz-research.com/lmro-partnership-initiative/ and has been involved in a wide range of international and national projects in the higher education sector.
DR. EGOR BURDA
Dr. Egor Burda studied innovation ecosystems and disruptive technologies at HSE University in Moscow. From 2022 to 2024, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the LBG Open Innovation in Science Research Centre in Vienna. His research explores novel ways of producing and evaluating scientific knowledge, with a particular focus on collaborative approaches involving stakeholders from academia, industry, and user communities.
He has extensive experience in both qualitative and quantitative data analysis and regularly presents his work at leading international conferences. His research has been published in renowned journals such as Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.
In 2024 he joined WPZ Research and is currently engaged in several projects investigating the effects and boundary conditions of collaborative knowledge production. In addition, he contributes as senior researchers to projects on digitalisation and higher education, including CLOUD-HED (Disaster Resilience in Higher Education Systems via a Cloud University Model).
DR. ANDREAS PFAFFEL
Dr. Andreas Pfaffel studied psychology at the University of Vienna, where he completed his doctorate in social and economic sciences with distinction in 2016. His dissertation in psychology focused on work, education, and economics. From 2011 onwards, he worked as an educational psychologist and evaluator at the Institute for Applied Psychology: Work, Education, and Economics at the University of Vienna, contributing to several research and evaluation projects in the higher education sector.
Since 2011, he has also been teaching as a lecturer at the University of Vienna, and since March 2020 at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, offering lectures and seminars on evaluation research, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and applied statistics, among other subjects.
In September 2020, he joined WPZ Research as a senior researcher and project manager, working on multiple projects in the fields of education, higher education research, and evaluation, among them the Austrian report on the implementation and impact of Erasmus+ and the HMIS2030 project (Zwischenbericht 2025 zur Nationalen Hochschulmobilitäts- und Internationalisierungsstrategie 2020 – 2030 (HMIS2030)