Elisabeth Gruber Werdegang

How people decide to reside/leave/move to places and how they become attached to and belong to places has implications for spatial development. My research focuses on where people aspire and decide (not) to live, how they engage with and settle in these places, and how this shapes places. My particular focus is on internal migration and mobility, as well as immobility and decisions to stay. I use qualitative research methods to gain an understanding of personal aspirations and capabilities. However, in order to understand how individual choices add up to societal processes, I work with quantitative data to gain a broad understanding of spatial structures and how they change and evolve. I am also interested in how spatial policies (regional policy, regional development, spatial planning) and spatial developments (including technological advances or digitalisation, but also housing markets and economic drivers) influence decisions about where to live and vice versa. My research therefore focuses on the underlying processes of population growth and decline, selective migration and depopulation, in-between forms of im/mobility arrangements (e.g. multilocality) and their implications for spatial development and policy. I thereby apply a geographical lens, focusing on different types of regions (often rural and peripheral areas) and taking into account specific local and regional developments.

My research has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Kaiserschild Foundation and by EU and public funding. In addition to basic research projects, I have conducted various forms of applied research. In particular, I have worked on projects dealing with youth migration and mobility, demographic ageing, housing markets, retirement migration, depopulation, services of general interest, digitalisation and its impact on rural areas. I am active in academic teaching and have taught a variety of courses at different study levels. In 2021 I was awarded for my innovative teaching activities.