Curriculum

Dr. Ernest Aigner is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Leuphana University Lüneburg. His research bridges questions of social justice and environmental sustainability from a political-economic perspective. Drawing on socioeconomic theory and empirical analysis, he investigates barriers, enabling conditions, and pathways for social-ecological transformations across multiple scales.

In the research project MaSES – Mainstreaming Social Ecological Sufficiency, he examines perceptions and determinants of “enough” in consumer goods and services, combining social science approaches with input–output-based modeling techniques.

Previously, he worked as an expert at the Centre for Climate and Health of the Austrian Public Health Institute (GÖG), where he focused on the challenges and potentials of low-income households in climate and health policies. Before that, he co-edited the APCC Special Report on Structures for Climate-Friendly Living and contributed to interdisciplinary projects on post-growth monetary and financial systems, climate-social policy integration, sustainable work, and poverty in the context of inflation and climate action.

He serves as a board member of the International Society for Ecological Economics and as an advisory board member of Kontext – Institute for Climate Issues. Dr. Aigner earned his PhD in 2022 at the Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). His dissertation analyzed a large bibliometric dataset of economic publications with regard to pluralism, concentration, paradigmatic orientation, and geographical distribution. He holds a Master’s degree in Socio-Ecological Economics and Policy from WU Vienna and also studied at the University of Illinois and Uppsala University.

Teaching

Research interests

Social Ecological Sufficiency

Economic Sociology and Plural Economics

Climate and Social Policy

Sustainable Work

Alternative Economic Systems and Utopias