The Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) has a new director: Marc Luy. The internationally recognised researcher succeeds Wolfgang Lutz, who was Director of the Institute from 2002 to 2022. The new management of the research institute is completed by the deputy directors Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz and Tomas Sobotka.
In his research on demographic trends and analyses, Luy focuses on the question of which mechanisms and factors influence people's health and longevity.
"Through our research, I want to better understand which causal factors are responsible for some people living longer and healthier lives than others." He describes his main goal as reducing the existing differences and helping people to enjoy as long and healthy a life as possible. "The existing knowledge is like a huge puzzle, most of the individual pieces of which are known, but we have not yet been able to put them together to form the big picture," says Luy, describing the current state of research.
Scientific career
Luy has studied geography, demography and urban studies/social planning at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg, Germany. He began his academic career in 1998 as a doctoral student and research assistant at the University of Rostock. From 2001 he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock and from 2002 at the Federal Institute for Population Research in Wiesbaden. In 2004, he completed his doctorate in demography at the University of Rostock and was appointed Assistant Professor of Demography and its Applications at the University of Rostock in the same year, a position he held until 2008. In 2014, he habilitated in demography and social statistics in Italy. In May 2022, he was appointed Honorary Professor of Demography at the University of Vienna.
Outstanding research
His best-known research project is the "German-Austrian Monastery Study" on the health and longevity of Catholic religious, for which he has received several scientific awards, including the Gunther Beyer Award from the European Association for Population Studies. In 2010, he received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), followed by an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2016.
Luy has long been associated with the Academy: He has been conducting research at the Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) since 2008. He was elected a member of the Young Academy of the ÖAW in 2011 and a corresponding member of the ÖAW in 2016.
This article was originally posted in German on the website of the ÖAW and is reproduced here with many thanks.