Dr. Dominik Klaus is a socio-economist and sociologist of work and has been working at the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) since July 2025. His research focuses, e.g. on new forms of employment and digitalisation. Before joining ZSI, Dominik had held research positions at the WU Vienna and the University of Vienna and taught a wide range of courses on topics, including socio-economic theories and methods, sociology of work, social policy, and sustainable business.
Dominik, why did you choose to study social sciences?
Given the enormous challenges we are facing, such as climate change and the necessity of a social-ecological transformation as well as the digital transformation, I wanted my work to make a meaningful contribution to addressing them. Despite the prevailing techno-utopianism, it soon became clear to me that many solutions do not fail due to technical limitations but because of societal reasons. The irreversibility of our lifestyles within a work-spend-cycle and the difficulty of breaking free from the iron cage of consumerism are good examples of this. That’s why I’m certain that social sciences can make a strong and meaningful contribution to tackling real societal challenges.
Did your PhD focus on social challenges and transformation?
My PhD project dealt with new forms of employment that have emerged through digitalisation – such as boundaryless work, platform work, virtual work, and so on. My main interest, however, based on the theory of recognition, was the question of how people in work arrangements where they mostly stare at screens, have hardly any face-to-face interaction, and produce no visible outcomes can still experience appreciation and identify with their profession. For me, this is still a relevant question. If I could start again, I’d change the operationalization and the publication strategy a little.
You previously worked at the University of Economics. What motivated you to opt for applied social science and join ZSI as a researcher and project manager?
In recent years, I focussed on academic research on digitalization and new forms of work, but I wanted to move towards policy relevant research that also creates social value. I already knew ZSI from the SOQUA training programme, a professional qualification in social science, which I completed a few years ago. Since then, I’ve had the ZSI on my radar for its many interesting projects in the sociology of work, and Ursula Holtgrewe’s research was a major inspiration for my dissertation.
Is there continuity in your research and work, or, if not, what has changed significantly?
There is less change than I expected! In the A&C team at ZSI, I thought that I would continue working from the perspective as a sociologist of work. And indeed, in the MaiJobCare project I can examine technological possibilities for improving working conditions in long‑term care. In October, the Horizon Europe project OPTIME will start. Within this project I will investigate the effects of working time reduction models on a broad scale. What has changed, however, are the working conditions and environment: time pressure for deliverables is much higher in smaller projects or service contracts, which is still something I am adjusting to.
What does your everyday work as a researcher at ZSI look like?
What projects are you currently involved in and what exactly do you do there?
In addition to the projects mentioned above, I am currently also involved in a program evaluation and the SI‑Plus Competence Centre. Altogether, that means four very different undertakings. One part of my daily work is to balance these projects and see where the pressure is highest, looking for the next upcoming deadline, conducting interviews, doing literature research, writing reports…
How do your projects contribute to solving current problems in concrete terms?
This is probably clearest in the case of MaiJobCare. By critically evaluating the technologies used in long-term care, we can assess their potential to improve working conditions. This represents a kind of shift in perspective—technology use in care is usually judged by other standards, such as care quality.
The working time reduction we will examine in OPTIME will provide a very broad empirical basis for studying the secondary effects and potential of such an important labour, social, and even climate policy instrument. At the SIPlus Competence Centre, I see a chance to explore new labour‑market projects and employment‑policy approaches as social innovations, and to enlarge the discussion on the future of work by including questions of new employment potentials.
You are working now at the Centre of Social Innovation – what does social innovation mean to you and why should it be studied scientifically?
Social innovation seeks new solutions to new societal challenges—and there are certainly plenty of those. We still need research that explores possibilities for sustainable ways of working and living; simply analysing problems and offering criticism is not enough. Professionalising the search for solutions is something that social innovation research can contribute to.
Another very worthwhile task is systematically examining existing lighthouse projects and exploring to what extent these solutions can be scaled. In the case of the cooperatively run supermarket MILA, for example, we can already observe how food supply can be organized on a communal basis and what is required for a supermarket to provide good food for everyone. This addresses several urgent issues in the field of food systems and could inform pathways for a socio‑ecological transformation. Building this bridge could be a possible task for social innovation research. Perhaps through my engagement at ZSI, I can help ensure that the potential of SI for socio‑ecological transformation receives renewed attention.
Thank you and all the best!
