Welcome everybody. I'm happy to start the conference, Transformative Change and the Contested Fields of Care and Housing in Europe Now. My name is Roland Watzmüller. I'm hosting this evening. I'm Associate Professor at the Department of Social Theory and Social Analysis. This conference is organized by the DOC Team 114 on the contested provisioning of care and housing. The DOC Team is supervised by Brigitte Aulenbacher and Andreas Novy, whom you will see in the on-stage conversation in the next round. The PhDs are conducted by Benjamin Baumgartner, Valentin Fröhlich, Florian Peminger, and Hans Wolmeri, whom you will see in the second part of the open stage conversation. The conference is organized in cooperation with the International Karl Polanyi Society, the Competence Center for Infrastructure, Economics, Public Services, and Social Provisioning, the Sorgenetz Association for Promotion of Societal Care, Culture, Life, Old Age, Dementia, and Dying, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care. I will not go into too much detail about the contents of the following two days. You will see them in the program, also on the onstage conversation. You will hear them in the program, also on the onstage conversation you will hear a bit. I'm only quoting the first paragraph of the conference website in full length. Care and housing are foundational for human well-being. Both deal with organizing and sustaining livelihoods. While care as a human activity reacts to the ever-giving contingency of life, housing arranges a place for undertaking everyday need-satisfying activities. In both fields, crises have exacerbated over the last decades, manifesting in care gaps, labor and care migration, and precarious working conditions of care workers, respectively in overburning costs due to the transformation of home into assets leading to gentrification and segregation. Despite being seldomly investigated together, care and housing, as well as their related crisis, are co-constitutive. And we will hear a lot of this in the following two and a half days. The conference number also lists a really exhaustive and big number of questions, which I will not mention here in detail because it would be too long. It would only raise some aspects the conference wants to debate. What are the driving forces of transformative change in the fields of care and housing? Which social, economic, political, cultural, and technological dynamics, and which norms and values, demands, and claims, shape modes of care and housing provision? This is only the first question of like 10 on the website of this really big and exhaustive problem. This implies questions how states, markets, and families adapt, which disputes and struggles are going on. Are new forms of care and housing emerging? And how do they affect life and work? How are changes in care and houses affected by digitalization and climate change? To name but a few areas the conference wants to debate over the next few days. Before we start with today's program, I'm happy to give you some information about organizational issues. First, I will introduce you to Tobias Eder and Alexander Aigner. Tobias Eder is in the back there and Alexander is still outside, I think. He's the one in the welcoming table. So if you have questions about the conference, about, I don't know, information you might need, please feel free to ask them. And I also mentioned already here, all the organizational work has been done by them. By them, it is really a tremendous task to organize such a big event. During the conference, drinks and coffee will be available in the Festsaal B or just in front of Festsaal R. For the different streams we have in the conference that will take place here but also in room four and five on the same floor. For lunchtime there's the opportunity to visit the men's are just below. I use some of the restaurants on campus or nearby. But lunch has to be self-paid. But for this evening, for the get-together, everyone is invited. This afternoon, so far about the housekeeping things. This afternoon, we will start with an on-stage conversation on transformative change in the fields of care and housing with Brigitte Auenbacher, Flavia Martinelli, Cornelia Klinger, and Andreas Novy, followed by insights into crossover research into care and housing in Europe with Benjamin Baumgartner, Valentin Fröhlich, Florian Pimminger, Hans-Johann Volmery. And after debate on the things presented, there will be the get-together. But before these inputs and debates start, I'm happy to open the stage for a number of welcome addresses. And I propose to have them in the order as outlined in the conference program. So I would ask Stefan Koch, director of the Johannes Kepler University since this autumn, to present your welcome address to us. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Dear ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, fellow faculty members, dear colleagues, dear doc team members, welcome here at Johannes Kepler University or JKU. I'm very pleased to welcome you here today to the International Conference Transformative Change in the Contested Fields of Care and Housing in Europe, here at a very snowy and especially cold JKU, and I'm very glad that you all made it here safe and sound. I would like to begin by thanking the JGU Institute for Sociology and the Department for the Theory of Society and Social Analysis, especially under the leadership of Professor Brigitte Aulenbacher for organizing this conference together with several partner universities and partner institutions. Promoting platforms to share interdisciplinary and inter-university expertise, as well as new ideas to find common solutions that will address the challenges of our times, is a priority at our university. This conference is just one such example and therefore we are very happy to host it here. After all, we are currently facing a multitude of challenges, as well as opportunities, especially when it to health care in Europe and in the rest of the world. We need to take demographic changes, our increasingly aging population, shifting family structures, increased mobility and social inequalities into account. Long-held concepts such as the gender and intergenerational contracts are being called into account. Long-held concepts such as the gender and intergenerational contracts are being called into question. The availability of mobile care services is often insufficient or only available to more or the most privileged members of society. As a result, we're facing major challenges. Issues such as these frequently go unnoticed, and those affected tend to feel alone with their concerns and fears. We cannot simply ride this crisis out or ignore it. We must apply sustainable concepts to address, manage and resolve such situations. The healthcare issue in particular raises a number of pressing questions, along with how to provide affordable housing. There are also issues such as migration and structuring the workplace with all of its possibilities and potential pitfalls in order to successfully become part of a globalized world. At the same time, there are many opportunities to generate entirely new healthcare models, particularly in the wake of digitalization and artificial intelligence, or use these technologies to support people working in healthcare or care in general. Over the past decades, the JKU Linz has been conducting research in this area in various disciplines at the cross of engineering, technology, and medicine, as well as in social sciences, economics and business. We have long understood just how vital partnerships between different areas and branches of science are in order to address and overcome the challenges of our time. We need these different viewpoints, we need different approaches, we need different theoretical underpinnings. So it comes as no surprise to learn that combining long-term healthcare and housing presents a wide range of opportunities, such as, for example, creating new forms of housing, including considerations relating to healthcare and nursing. Multi-generational housing and or accessible housing could provide solutions to meet the growing demand in the healthcare sector. We will also need people who can provide the valuable skills required for this vital sector in healthcare. We cannot be complacent and ignore the exploitative situation that often affects many foreign healthcare workers and their excessive workloads that they are currently undertaking. In the end, we are once again confronted with questions as to how we can successfully bridge the gap between humanity and financial viability. What would it take us to get closer to solving this looming healthcare crisis? How should our society evolve and what kind of values do we stand for together? The contested provisioning of care and housing conference serves as a basis and inspiration behind this conference. The project focuses on this topic from a variety of different perspectives and we invite you to not only share your expertise and insights throughout this conference but also add to the debate. I would like to thank the opportunity, I would like to take this opportunity to extend a personal heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you. Thanks to your research in this highly important and timely field, you're addressing a key area pertaining to social responsibility and progress. This is precisely what universities are here for. They are not here to only generate knowledge just for the sake of it, but to work for and serve the people, not just in our country, but as part of a global family to be able to secure and safeguard a future together. Our university is not only a place to learn, a place to be educated and to conduct research, it is also a place to foster and encourage social change in line with our commitment to social responsibility, as well as support positive transitions in the area of healthcare and housing and beyond it. We can only accomplish these goals by forging close ties with and within academia, but also science, industry, the business community, the government, and very importantly, members of civil society. I personally hope this conference serves as a driving force towards social advancements. In this spirit, thank you all very much for your attendance and I wish you an insightful, inspiring experience at our beautiful and currently very snowy campus. Thank you for your contributions and I hope you will enjoy this conference. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much for this warm welcome from the university. A hand over now to Gerald Bruckner, Dean of the Faculty for Social Sciences and Economics at the JKU. So, thank you. Dear Rector Koch, dear Professor Ahulenbacher, dear doc team, dear colleagues and conference participants. As Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Economics and Business, I would also like to welcome all of you here to the Johannes Kepler University. And again, I also want to thank Professor Aulenbacher for allowing this conference to take place here in Linz. I know preparing and organizing such a conference is a huge effort. Thank you very much on behalf of the entire faculty for your team and for taking this effort. for taking this effort. Your conference topic, transformative change in the contested fields of care and housing in Europe is a perfect fit for Linz. The Rector already mentioned it, that the multi- and interdisciplinary research on social transformation is a central research focus for this university and in particular for our faculty. We have currently advertised two full professorships and two additional tenure track positions in the area of transformative change at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Rothschild School of Economics and Statistics. And it was also mentioned, apart from the academic research, the topic is highly relevant from a societal and sociopolitical perspective. sociopolitical perspective. The shortage of personnel, the physical and mental strain of nursing staff and chronic funding problems in the long-term care sector with its resulting inequalities are huge challenges for the whole society and all these issues are currently not being adequately addressed. Please let me allow two brief comments. First of all, demographic changes are increasing the demand for qualified care and nursing services not only in Austria but in almost all countries. At the same time, these demographic changes have a significant impact on the supply of care services. In Austria, more than 30% of all care workers are over 50 years old. According to a forecast by the Austrian National Public Health Institute, we will need additionally per year approximately 4,000 to 7,000 people until 2030. If the birth rate is continuing to fall, this would mean that without any kind of immigration, to fall. This would mean that without any kind of immigration, up to 10% of a birth cohort would be needed to become care professionals. Would this seem very realistic? Second, approximately 45% of men beyond 60 years old are in the labor force, and only 20% of women in this age group are in the labor force. Additionally, we have a very strong increasing trend towards part-time. part-time, one in two women and 12.6% of men in employment do not work full-time. For almost 40% of women, the reason is to take care for children and for dependent adults. 72% of them, according to Statistics Austria, say that they want to take care of them themselves. In addition, each and every second child in Austria is in care that does not allow full-time employment for the mothers. In total, 73% of all informal caregivers in our country are female. So lots of numbers, lots of percentages, and the director mentioned it before, huge challenges for socio-political aspects. A recent paper by economists from this university, Wolfgang Freeml and co-authors, they came up with a causal analysis. What's going to happen if parents have a health shock? And what they find is that income and labor market participation, in particular of females, go significantly down. So if a health shock of parents occur, it is overwhelmingly the females who take the long-term care of the parents and the identification strategy is very convincing, So it's indeed a causal effect. Dear conference participants, I wish you a pleasant, productive, and exciting conference. And I hope that the results of your promising papers will contribute first to a better understanding from the academic perspective, but also we would expect some kind of potential solutions for all these problems that I mentioned. Enjoy the conference and thanks again for being here in Linz. Thank you very much for opening up the scope of the problems that lie ahead and can be discussed, which was similar to the first welcome address. I would now hand over to Alexandra Strickner from the Competence Center for Infrastructure, Economics, Public Services and Social Improvisioning. And I ask you for your welcome address. Thank you, Roland. Dear Mr. Rector Koch, dear Dean Bruckner, dear Professor Auenbacher, dear colleagues and conference participants. I also extend a very warm welcome from my side to all of you and it's a very big pleasure to see so many that are here in particular also so many young people which of course is also normal at the university. I have the honor to say a few words as one of the co-founders and as executive member of the competence center and the first thing I also wanted to do is to thank the team to thank professor Aulenbacher to thank the whole team that has been organizing this conference and that is also doing all the work during these days so that we can be here. Without them, of course, we would not be here, and that's also a big part of the care work. Let me say a few words perhaps about the Competence Center for Infrastructure Politics, Public Services, and Social Provisioning, which several of you might not know yet because it's rather a younger competence center that was founded by Andreas Noby, myself and a few other colleagues and where several of colleagues that are doing important research are part of that competence center in our academic board. Professor Aulenbacher is there. Professor Wegleitner is also there. It's called in German Alltagskompetenzzentrum für Alltagsökonomie. We founded it because it was clear to us from the research, for instance, that we know in climate, biodiversity, resource crisis, but also the other crisis, that in order to solve the multiple and multidimensional crisis that we have, we need to have a systemic look into how we address that. So it's not only about looking, for instance, on switching from renewable energy to decarbonizing the economy, increasing the efficiency of production and moving towards green growth while keeping an eye on the social dimension. It is something where we need to go much deeper if we want to really keep global heating with limits of nature and humankind. And it needs to also for us radically reduce the input of resources, energy, materials, land into our systems of production and consumption. And of course, there is also a link to the fields that are going to be discussed in this conference on care and housing. So in order to really address the socio-ecological transformation, what is at the core is really to secure the basic everyday needs that we all have from local provisioning of food and housing to social infrastructures such as health and care, mobility, energy networks, culture, and recreation. And when doing that, we also have, of course, to look at those needs to be taken care of that we also look at the way how they are provided. So it needs provided the provision of collective forms and institutions that are organized not-for-profit. So in German we would say Gemeinnützig as public services, as public infrastructures or in other collective forms. That will be the only way that we can address the provision of all these goods while being able to also escape the general growth paradigms and to provide a good life for all within planetary limits and securing social justice and ecological sustainability. And that means we need also to have a very different way of how we look at the economy and that we move away from allocating scarce resources as mainstream economics would define economy to organizing our livelihoods. And one of the core elements of this economy is the care work. That is why this conference is so important, care and housing, to think them together. And in the care work, it has been already said by the colleagues before, we're talking about paid and unpaid work and how do we change this relation. So it means to also go into a very radical shift of how we look at the economy. And it also means that we need to develop systemic alternatives. So thinking things together. And that is why I think this conference is so vital. And we are honored to be also part of that conference, to have the systemic way and think, in this case, care and housing together and not just have one look at one side. In that sense, I'm also very, very curious to learn about the current research, about the concrete examples and the new ways of thinking that are emerging around this issue and the alternatives that are emerging. And I wish us also very insightful, fruitful, and inspiring days. Thank you. Thank you very much, Alexandra Strickner, for your input, for the welcome address. The next one in the program would be Ulla Greenenberg from the Center for International Research on Aging and Care from the Karl Franzens University, Graz. But she could not come because she has fallen ill. But Klaus Wegleitner from Sorgenetz Association for the Promotion of Societal Care Culture will be the next in the list for the welcome address. And according to my information, I got an email today, you will also include the welcome address from Ulla Klinenberg in your welcome address, as far as I understood. I hope I'm correct. So the floor is yours. Yeah, a very warm welcome from me too, dear participants, dear colleagues, to this wonderful and very important conference. Many thanks to the whole care and housing doc team. Many thanks, Brigitte. Many thanks, Andreas. As already mentioned, I'm pleased to welcome you today not only as chairman of SORGANETZ, Association for the Promotion of Societal Care Culture in Vienna, but also as co-director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care at the University of Graz, standing in, as mentioned, for Professor Ulla Kriberneck. Ulla Kriberneck, the director of SIRAC, in short, SIRAC, has unfortunately not yet recovered from a COVID illness and sends her warmest greetings to you all, combined with the wish that we may enter into an enriching interdisciplinary and international exchange on socio-political areas of tension, of hope, inspiring developments and transformation processes in care and housing over the next few days. As a relatively new or young interdisciplinary research center at the University of Graz, we have been involved from the very beginning in the critical examination of the social or social-cultural construction of age and the organization of care in society. So based on approaches from the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies, questions of cultural representation and this societal construction of aging and images of aging and old age are addressed as a question of the gender equitable democratic organization of care. The areas of demography, dementia research, care research, medical and healthcare ethics, and end of life care are also investigated and placed in an inter- and transdisciplinary research context with other universities in Graz as part of the Age and Care Research Group in Graz, as well as the public and national and international partner institutions and networks. So in all these diverse areas we want, we're trying to contribute to developments and transformations that promote age appropriate, more just and caring societies and communities. We were therefore very pleased that a wonderful exchange with the current housing doc team and particularly with Brigitte has developed over the past year, which is now also reflected in the very generous invitation to be a cooperation partner of the conference. Thank you very much. So now I'm changing hats and speaking as chairman of the Sorgenetz Association. At the Sorgenetz Association, we also feel very honored to have been invited to co-host this conference. We're a very small NGO that, as a network organization in Vienna, has set itself the goal of opening up societal spaces and settings that enable citizens, caregivers, helpers, organizations, politicians, academic scholars, and many others to relate to each other in maybe novel or new ways in order to influence public, political, and academic discourses and contribute to changes in societal care cultures and care structures. As Sorgnets, we are involved in concrete caring communities initiatives, such as the so-called Achtsamer Achter, which means kind of mindful or caring eighth district in Vienna. We are involved in international caring and compassionate communities knowledge networks and therefore also in the critical reflection of current societal developments around the organization and distribution of care in all phases of life. For example, we organize international care symposium on the topics of care and justice or on the potentials of stronger networking between the various societal care movements. We run international caring communities courses and generally try to continuously open up spaces for transdisciplinary theory and practice development. So by being so generously invited by the care and housing doc team and the other partner organizations gathered here to co-host this conference as SORGNET, I think it's kind of a very visible signal sent out. Firstly, I think that it's a signal that the doc team has not only researched international care and housing practice and development contexts in recent years, but has established an ongoing knowledge exchange and transdisciplinary discourse on with the local partners here in Austria, which I think is a very successful process. And secondly, the transformative developments in the field of care and housing fundamentally require this interplay between research and practice. I think only in this way forward-looking and hope-inspiring models of housing and care emerging very concrete settlements, local housing and care context in living spaces, in neighborhoods, in communities. And also in this way only can political and structural transformation be identified. So as SIRAC and the SORGANET association, we see the cooperation invitation as a great collegial appreciation and would like to thank the entire DOC organization team and the other cooperation partners in advance. Thank you very much. Thanks to the great preparatory work and the smart planning of the program, you have made it possible for us all to have this wonderful space for knowledge exchange and networking. So now I wish us all lively and fruitful discussions, moments of surprise, new insights, and above all, maybe wonderful personal encounters. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So thank you very much to the welcome address panel, which really opened up the topics, the questions, the scope of the conference for the next two days. I think it was well justified to organize it more like a panel than less like the usual welcome address staging. And I think we now can continue with the next point in the program. We will need a quick change of the setting. So thank you very much to you.