2018 Ursula Hemetek

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FWF Wittgenstein Awards

Ursula Hemetek

Austria’s most highly endowed research award

With nominees named by the scientific community, winners selected by an international jury of experts, and a €1.5 million endowment that exceeds all other individual funding awards in Austria, the FWF Wittgenstein Award is unique in every respect. With this award, the FWF not only honors exceptional academic careers, but also offers researchers the resources they need to advance their own research work at the highest international level.

Gruppenbild der FWF-START und Wittgenstein-Preisträger — Setting the stage for outstanding research: The researchers accepting their awards at the formal award ceremony © Daniel Novotny/FWF

FWF Wittgenstein Award Winners in front of the camera

Target group

The funding program is aimed at outstanding researchers from all disciplines.

Funding goals

The program provides both recognition and support to excellent researchers (up to 60 years of age) who have already produced exceptional work and who occupy a prominent place in the international scientific community.

Funding period and funding amount

60 months
€1.5 million

Ursula Hemetek 2018

In 2018, the prize was awarded to both the Austrian ethnomusicologist Ursula Hemetek and computer scientist and mathematician Herbert Edelsbrunner. Hemetek studies music as a social and artistic form of expression in minority communities and has done groundbreaking work in her field. She is one of the world's most influential figures in ethno-musicological discourse. In 2019, she founded the internationally well-connected and renowned Music and Minorities Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw).