Research Activities

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Bio-sketch

In his research and teaching, Professor Alban Knecht – social pedagogue and sociologist – focuses on the topics of social work, social policy, poverty research, and employment promotion for disadvantaged young people. 

He was the managing director of a medium-sized family business and worked for an Austrian welfare organisation as a consultant for social policy and migration. In 2010, he completed his doctorate on the ‘Production of Quality of Life in the Welfare State’ before continuing his research at the University of Linz, both in an EU project on youth policy and in a Poverty Conference project on poverty and shame. In 2024, he gained his habilitation with the publication ‘Governing with Social Policy’ and was awarded the teaching licence (venia docendi) for the subject ‘Social Pedagogy and Social Policy’ by the University of Wuppertal.

Since May 2025, he has held the professorship of Social Work at the Bertha von Suttner Private University in St. Pölten and has been teaching as a private lecturer at the University of Wuppertal.

Alban Knecht is a member of the advisory board of the Social Inequality Section of the Austrian Sociological Association and the journal Neue Praxis, as well as a of the scientific advisory board of the Austrian Poverty Conference and the Social Policy Association.

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Academic Experience

Since 2025: Professor of Social Work at the Bertha von Suttner Private University of St. Pölten
Since 2025: Private lecturer at the University of Wuppertal
2019 ­– 2025: Post-doctoral assistant at the University of Klagenfurt; part-time spokesperson for the Department of Social Education and Inclusion Research at the University of Klagenfurt in the role of head of department; spokesperson for the Department of Social Pedagogy and Inclusion Research at the University of Klagenfurt in the role of head of department
2018 – 2019: Research project assistant for the Austrian Poverty Conference in a project on the experience of shame among people affected by poverty 
2013 – 2019: Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Campus Vienna, Department of Social Affairs 
2015 – 2018: Research assistant (in a project on disadvantaged young people, labour market promotion, social investment state, activation) and lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University Linz 
2008 – 2017: Lecturer at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Applied Social Sciences
2014 – 2015: Consultant at Volkshilfe Österreich. Foci: child poverty, social policy, asylum and migration
2013 – 2014: Research assistant at the Johannes Kepler University Linz in the project ‘Social Innovation – Empowering the Young for the Common Good’ of the 7^th EU Framework Research Programme
1998 – 2012: Managing Director of Knecht und Partner GmbH, Munich

Academic Training

2024: Habilitation Procedure at the University of Wuppertal, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences: Licence to teach ‘Social Education and Social Policy’
2003 – 2010: Studied at the Institute of Sociology at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), Munich. Dissertation on "Production of Quality of Life in the Welfare State"
1996 – 2001: Studied Social Work at the Munich University of Applied Sciences (with internships at the Institute for the Blind, Munich, and a one-year internship at a Condrobs: transitional housing centre for addiction support). 
1990 – 1995: Studied Economics at the University of Augsburg, LMU Munich and the University of Freiburg (not completed)

Selected Publications 

• Alban Knecht (2024): Social Work in the Changing Welfare State. A Policy Analysis of Active Labour Market Policies for Disadvantaged Youth in Austria. Publication series of the ÖFEB Social Pedagogy Section. Opladen, Berlin, Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich. https://www.doi.org/10.3224/84743053
• Roland Atzmüller / Alban Knecht / Michael Bodenstein (2020): Punishing the Poor and Fighting "Immigration into the Social System" – Welfare Reforms by the Conservative and Far-right Government in Austria 2017 – 2019. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialreform / Journal of Social Policy Research, vol. 66, I. 4, pp. 525–552. Abstract | https://www.doi.org/10.1515/zsr-2020-0022
• Roland Atzmüller / Fabienne Decieux / Alban Knecht (2019): Transforming Children and Adolescents in Human Capital. Changes of Youth Policies in Post-Crisis Austria. In: Grimm, Marc / Ertugrul, Baris / Bauer, Ullrich (eds.): Children and Adolescents in Times of Crises in Europe. Reihe: Children's Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol. 20. Berlin and others: Springer. pp. 107–123. https://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16331-0_7  
• Roland Atzmüller / Alban Knecht (2018): Transformations of Work and Welfare – Apprentices under Neoliberalism. In: Social Work & Society, vol. 16, no. 2 [ Special Issue: Ambivalences of the Rising Welfare Service State – Hopes and Hazard of Modern Wel­fare Archi­tectures]. Complete text (pdf) | https://ejournals.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/index.php/sws/article/view/572
• Roland Atzmüller / Alban Knecht (2017): Vocational training in the framework of the 'Austrian Training Guarantee'. In: Otto, Hans-Uwe / Egdell, Valerie / Bonvin, Jean-Michel / Atzmüller, Roland (eds.): Empowering Young People in Disempowering Times. Fighting Inequality Through Capability Oriented Policy. Cheltenham (UK) / Northampton, MA (US): Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 115–128. https://www.doi.org/10.4337/9781788110860.00013 | Abstract

Scientific Memberships

• Member of the Advisory Board of the Social Inequality Section of the Austrian Sociological Association
• Member of the advisory board of the socio-pedagogical journal Neue Praxis
• Member of the Scientific Advisory Board and the preparatory team of The Poverty Conference – Austrian Network against Poverty and Social Exclusion
• College member of the Social Work Section of the Austrian Sociological Association

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