2027 Academic Fellow, December 2027 – February 2028
Professor Barbara Prainsack is a Professor of Comparative Policy Analysis in the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna where she directs the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Solidarity (CeSCoS) and co-directs the Vienna Centre for Advanced Studies (ViCAS). Her research explores what holds societies together in times of rapid change: how science technology, and public policy intersect with everyday life, from healthcare and digital technologies to broader questions of justice, responsibility, and collective action. A central focus of Professor Prainsack’s work is solidarity: how it is practiced, contested and institutionalised, and how it can help us navigate societal challenges in ways that are fairer and more inclusive. Through comparative research and engagement with policy and civil society, she seeks to connect ethical ideas with the concrete realities of governance, democracy and social life. In October 2026, the leading medical journal The Lancet published a profile of her research.
Professor Prainsack has extensive experience in advising governments and public institutions. At the European level, she has been a member of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies since 2017 and its Chair since 2022, providing advice to the European Commission on the ethical and societal implications of developments in science and new technologies. In Austria, she has been a longstanding member of the Austrian National Bioethics Commission and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence of the Austrian UNESCO Commission.
Her government advisory experience extends across health, bioethics, data governance, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Prainsack served on the COVID-19 task force of Austria’s Public Health Council, advising the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health. She has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Gesundheit Österreich, Austria’s public health agency, since 2021, and is President of the Austrian Platform for Personalized Medicine. These appointments complement her wider work advising policymakers on the ethical, societal and governance challenges arising from developments in science, health, data and technology.
An internationally recognised expert in data governance and solidarity, Professor Prainsack has spent approximately 15 years developing the concept of data solidarity, an approach to data governance that seeks to distribute the benefits and risks arising from data use more fairly. Her work in this area combines academic research with practical tools and guidance for governments and other decision-makers. It has resulted in the White Paper on Data Solidarity, a Data Solidarity Implementation Guide, the creation of an online tool, and policy briefs, including work connected with G20. Her academic contributions on data governance, solidarity and digital health have appeared in leading journals including Nature Medicine, The Lancet, and Global Policy.
In addition to providing formal advice to government, Professor Prainsack contributes extensively to policy and public debate. She is regularly invited to address policy and practitioner audiences internationally on issues including data governance, solidarity, digital health and the societal implications of emerging technologies and contributes to national and international media and public discussion. She has combined these activities with a strong emphasis on translating academic research into forms that can be used by policymakers and practitioners, including policy briefs, implementation guidance and practical tools.
Professor Prainsack’s international standing is reflected in her election to the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (as a Foreign Member), the Academia Europaea and the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). She holds honorary and affiliate positions at leading institutions across the globe, including the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney and the Centre for Health, Law, and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX) at the University of Oxford. Professor Prainsack was a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in 2016 and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2023–24 and, in 2026, received the City of Vienna Prize for outstanding achievements in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Cultural Studies and Law. She is the author or co-author of more than 160 peer-reviewed articles and eight monographs and reports having secured more than €3 million in research funding as Principal Investigator and more than €5 million as Co-Investigator. Her recent books include States of Solidarity: How to Build a Society (Oxford University Press, 2026) and, with Hendrik Wagenaar, The Pandemic Within: Policy Making for a Better World (Policy Press, 2021).
Professor Prainsack also has strong existing connections with Australia. She has been an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney since 2021 and was a Visiting Professor with the Practical Justice Initiative at the University of New South Wales between 2017 and 2020. She maintains Australian research collaborations, including work on global health solidarity. Her proposed ANZSOG Fellowship, “The public value of data: Stewardship and benefit sharing in public-sector data (re)use,” brings her international work on data solidarity and health-data governance into dialogue with Australian and New Zealand public-sector practice. Her proposed work would engage senior policy advisers, public servants and regulators responsible for health, administrative data and data sharing, alongside practitioners and policy leads working on Māori and Indigenous data governance, to explore practical approaches to mitigating harms and sharing the benefits generated through public-sector data use.
Fellowship focus
The public value of data: Stewardship and benefit sharing in public-sector data (re)use
Awards / Recognition
2026 | City of Vienna Prize for outstanding achievements in Humanities, Social Sciences, Cultural Studies and Law
2026 | Top 3 “Scientists of the Year” by the Austrian newspaper Die Presse (public vote)
2023/24 | 1-year residency fellowship at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg)
Selected publications – peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters
Prainsack, B., Medhora, R. P. and Kickbusch, I. (2026). ‘Governing the digital determinants of health for children and young people: A global public health imperative’, The Lancet, 408(10565), pp. 1774–1786. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)01293-6
Prainsack, B. (2025). ‘Our stakes in data: How do we (re)gain democratic control over digital practices?’ In J. Goossens, E. Keymolen and A. Stanojević (eds), Public Governance and Emerging Technologies: Values, Trust, and Regulatory Compliance, pp. 131–147. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_7.
Hogan, C., Prainsack, B. and El-Sayed, S. (2026). ‘Data solidarity, public value and the future of health data governance’. In B. Marent (ed.), De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Health and Society, pp. 481–498. De Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783111247854-026.
Prainsack, B. (2025). ‘Collective responsibility in a world of crisis’. In D. Beyleveld, R. Brownsword and M. Düwell (eds), Research Handbook on Law, Governance and Bioethics, pp. 104–118. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. doi: 10.4337/9781788116671.00011.
El-Sayed, S., Kickbusch, I. and Prainsack, B. (2025). ‘Data solidarity: Operationalising public value through a digital tool’, Global Public Health, 20(1), 2450403. doi: 10.1080/17441692.2025.2450403.
Kickbusch, I., Prainsack, B. and Holly, L. (2025). ‘New rules are required for WHO’s engagement with Big Tech’, BMJ, 390, r1718. doi: 10.1136/bmj.r1718.
Prainsack, B. and Forgó, N. (2024). ‘New AI regulation in the EU seeks to reduce risk without assessing public benefit’, Nature Medicine, 30, pp. 1235–1237. doi: 10.1038/s41591-024-02874-2.
Prainsack, B. and Kickbusch, I. (2024). ‘A new public health approach to data: Why we need data solidarity’, BMJ, 386, q2076. doi: 10.1136/bmj.q2076.
Prainsack, B. and Kickbusch, I. (2024). Data Solidarity Glossary. Geneva: Digital Transformations for Health Lab. Available at: Data Solidarity Glossary.
Prainsack, B. and El-Sayed, S. (2023). ‘Beyond individual rights: How data solidarity gives people meaningful control over data’, The American Journal of Bioethics, 23(11), pp. 36–39. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2023.2256267.
Prainsack, B., El-Sayed, S., Forgó, N., Szoszkiewicz, Ł. and Baumer, P. (2022). ‘Data solidarity: A blueprint for governing health futures’, The Lancet Digital Health, 4(11), pp. e773–e774. doi: 10.1016/S2589-7500(22)00189-3.
Prainsack, B. and Forgó, N. (2022). ‘Why paying individual people for their health data is a bad idea’, Nature Medicine, 28(10), pp. 1989–1991. doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01955-4.
Prainsack, B. (2019). ‘Logged out: Ownership, exclusion and public value in the digital data and information commons’, Big Data & Society, 6(1), pp. 1–15. doi: 10.1177/2053951719829773.
Selected publications – books and major reports
Prainsack, B. (2026). States of Solidarity: How to Build a Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prainsack, B., and Kickbusch, I. (2024). Data Solidarity Glossary. Digital Transformations for Health Lab, Geneva.
Prainsack, B., El-Sayed, S., Forgó, N., Szoszkiewicz, Ł., and Baumer, P. (2022). Data Solidarity – A White Paper. The Lancet & Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030.
Wagenaar, H., and Prainsack, B. (2021). The Pandemic Within: Policy Making for a Better World. Bristol: Policy Press.
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