Iepke won the ÖAW’s Dissertation Award for Research on Migration 2025!

On the 24^th of March, 2026, Iepke received the 2025 Dissertation Prize for Research on Migration of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

Her dissertation project, “Conviviality and Infrastructure of Mobility: Cross-border Commuting in the Polish-German Border Region”, examines how cross-border labor mobility influences the daily lives of commuters in the border region of these two countries. Her focus is on the working conditions of the “unskilled” sector in the labor market, as well as gendered, affective-physical and infrastructural aspects of mobile labor.

In line with the VISION’s overall approach, Iepke uses multimodal, participatory methods, generating important insights into migration research in general, and on the study of labor mobility and social cohesion in Europe in particular. Her dissertation is being supervised by Kyoko Shinozaki (Department of Sociology and Social Geography) and Bianca Szytniewski (Utrecht, Geography).

The ÖAW Dissertation Award for Research on Migration recognizes outstanding, ongoing dissertation projects that address migration, displacement, and social change.

The VISION Project Team extends heartfelt congratulations on the award!