Innsbruck’s Mayor Georg Willi, City Councillor for Science Christine Oppitz-Plörer and Rector Veronika Sexl each emphasized the relevance of cross-organizational and interdisciplinary networking in dealing with current and future challenges.

Mayor Georg Willi explained, “As a city council and as a university, we are key actors and therefore in a key position to make working in Innsbruck more attractive. As an employer, we know very well from our own experience the new world of work and the volatile labour market. However, our work is also changing the framework conditions for work locally. As a city, we want to tackle this hand in hand with the University of Innsbruck – in a tried and tested tandem approach.” 

Rector Veronika Sexl, who is responsible for HR agendas at the university, emphasized the importance of a close exchange. “Together, we need to consider how we can make the alpine-urban location of Innsbruck even more attractive for our employees. After all, people are the heart of everything we do, and we need to provide them with inspiring and innovative framework conditions.”

City Councillor Christine Oppitz-Plörer added, “With our well-functioning collaboration, which we are further intensifying as part of the EUniverCities networking project, we are creating a comprehensive basis of shared expertise to meet current and future challenges. We are delighted that we are able to bring academia and administration together in our joint workshops. Through networked expertise, we can find new approaches and solutions in practice.”

Attractive cooperation 

Both the city and the University of Innsbruck are among the largest employers in the area and both face a key challenge: how to recruit and retain suitable staff. The event “Attractive Work – Attractive Innsbruck?” organized by the City of Innsbruck and the University of Innsbruck as part of the EUniverCities network explored this and other questions relating to the changing labour market in order to initiate an exchange that outlines both (common) challenges and possible solutions. With a mixture of lectures and interactive settings, a discussion space was created that brought together stakeholders from the city and the university, which opened up new paths. The event was organized in cooperation with the Sustainability Week of the University of Innsbruck.