From August until the end of November, Nora Hansl undertook a research stay at the Pandemic Sciences Institute (University of Oxford), generously hosted by Samatha Vanderslott. The research stay aimed to provide time to work on the dissertation project, expand networks, and broaden theoretical and methodological expertise.  

Two groups invited Nora to engage with their work: First, the Pandemic Science Institute, an interdisciplinary team of scholars working in close relation with the British government and the WHO to identify and counter future pandemic threats; and second, the ETHOX group, focusing on bioethical questions in healthcare and medical research to provide support for healthcare professionals, researchers and policy makers. Both groups welcomed her to their internal meetings, providing an opportunity to foster a comparative perspective on health policy and learn about current research trends.

A special highlight of the stay, in addition to the beautiful city with its numerous breathtaking libraries, was the workshop ‘Vaccines & vaccination: A future agenda for social sciences & policy’ (24 November 2025), organised by Samantha Vanderslott. This event brought together international scholars from the field of vaccination, including Katharina Paul, who participated as discussant.

Furthermore, Nora presented her current work at the Medical Sociology Conference, organised by the British Sociology Association. Her presentation was titled ‘Valuing individual vaccinations’.

We would like to thank Samantha Vanderslott for extending this amazing invitation and supporting Nora during her stay, as well as including her in the STS & Health reading group.

The research stay was supported by the University of Vienna and the Vienna Doctoral School for Social Sciences (ViDSS).

From 15 to 16 December 2025, an international workshop on the topic of ‘Immunity & Resistance’ took place at the University of Vienna. The workshop was organised in collaboration with Christian Haddad (Department of Science and Technology Studies and Department of Sociology) and Samantha Vanderslott (University of Oxford). In addition to closed panels, a public keynote event with Claas Kirchhelle (INSERM, Paris) and Janina Kehr (University of Vienna) took place on 15 December 2025 (17:00) in the Franz-König-Saal (Lecture Hall 06).

The workshop invited critical contributions from the social sciences and humanities to a workshop themed ‘immunity and resistance’. This theme intended to bring into view recent shifts and future trajectories of global/planetary health, taking vaccines and antibiotics – and their precarious roles in contemporary politics, societies and economies – as an empirical lens and conceptual starting point for discussions. The 20th century witnessed extraordinary progress in the field of global health, particularly in the control and mitigation of infectious diseases. Much of this success is attributable to two cornerstone technologies of biomedicine: vaccines and antibiotics. These innovations significantly reduced global morbidity and mortality and came to represent the promise of transformative medical advances. These advances, however, have encountered serious setbacks on several fronts due to the complex interplay of biological, environmental, socio-political, and political-economic developments.

First, on the microbial front, societies face not only a growing threat from emerging infectious diseases and zoonoses – most recently exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic – but also the relentless spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and consequently, drug resistant infections. AMR complicates the treatment of diseases once considered ‘conquered’ by modern drugs, thereby jeopardizing routine medical procedures and undermining the collective sense of safety ncapsulated in modern antibiotic drugs (Landecker, 2016).

Second, on the socio-political side, both vaccine hesitancy and inequity of access have presented major obstacles to realizing population immunity through vaccination. Vaccines help prevent infections caused by drug-resistant pathogens, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, thereby intrinsically reducing the overall need for antimicrobial treatments. Despite this critical role, however, the value of vaccines in the fight against AMR is not adequately reflected in national policy responses, nor in mainstream public discourse (Charani et al., 2023; Jones et al., 2025). Beyond this, policy responses to the wealth of misinformation and regarding vaccination have so far failed to regain the public’s trust in vaccines.

Finally, political-economic factors have shaped biomedical research and development (R&D) in both vaccine development and antimicrobial treatments (Alas Portillo et al., 2024; Doganova & Rabeharisoa, 2024). The over-reliance on profit-driven R&D has meant that industry actors have set research and investment priorities that often inadequately match critical public health needs. This is especially evident in the antibiotics R&D sector, where industry-led innovation has stalled in recent decades (World Health Organization, 2024), and in the decline of publicly funded vaccine production initiatives (World Health Organization, 2022). Recent politically motivated attacks on biomedical research infrastructure, along with reduced investment in international cooperation, have compounded these policy challenges, which now appear resistant to resolution due to a high degree of scientific and political uncertainty, and significance of the values at stake.

Overall, these intricate challenges around immunity and resistance offer an intriguing empirical window through which to study the multi-layered shifts in global health, as well as the crises facing it today, requiring scholars and practitioners to (re)value the role of vaccines and antibiotics in contemporary (planetary) health governance. This requires conceptualizing vaccines and antibiotics as embedded in the shifting microbial, sociopolitical and political-economic terrains of global/planetary health.

Katharina Paul and Nora Hansl have been interviewed about their new interview study on the role of kindergarten and daycare facilities in vaccination governance. Read more about their study here: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000290051/impfaufklaerung-im-kindergarten-ungenutztes-potenzial-gegen-vermeidbare-krankheiten

Die Presse published an article including an interview with Katharina T. Paul on vaccine fatigue in Austria. She emphasized that vaccine hesitancy stems largely from societal narratives and systemic gaps rather than education, and she called for honest, empathetic communication and stronger structural support to rebuild trust in vaccination

The interviews was published in their health supplement, November 2025.

In collaboration with Christian Haddad (Department of Sociology & Department of STS) and Samantha Vanderslott (Oxford), VALUE VACC group will be hosting an interdisciplinary workshop later this year. Titled “Immunity and resistance”, the workshop seeks to bring into view the socially, economically, and politically precarious role of vaccines and antibiotics in an era of planetary health. The call for paper is here – abstracts due in September!

Gesund&Leben, Austria’s most popular monthly health magazine, has published an interview with Nora Hansl on childhood vaccination in Austria. She emphasised the importance of understanding vaccination as a lifelong project and the value of paediatric vaccination consultations for parents.

The interview was published in Gesund&Leben, vol.20, is. July and August, p.27: https://gesundundleben.aerzteverlag.at/

“Der Standard” published an article including an interview with Katharina T. Paul and Nora Hansl on parental decision-making regarding childhood vaccination. Among other things, they discussed different reasonings informing vaccination decisions and vaccine-hesitancy as a challenge for Austrian healthcare.

The newspaper article was published on May 16, 2025. An online version can be found here: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000269763/impfentscheidung-von-eltern-zwischen-wissen-zweifel-und-vertrauen

The “Kurier” published an article about the VALUE VACC project. It includes an interview with Katharina T. Paul and also gives a brief insight into Nora Hansl’s research on decision-making practices of parents regarding childhood vaccination in Austria.

The newspaper article was published on April 26, 2025. An online version can be found here: https://kurier.at/wissen/wien-wills-wissen/mehr-klarheit-beim-thema-impfen/403036430

Nora Hansl presented her recent work on paediatricians as street-level bureaucrats at the 21^st annual working conference of the Netherlands Institute of Governance. This vibrant research network brings together public administration and political science scholars from more than 10 universities. The conference, held on the beautiful campus of Ghent University, was an exciting opportunity to share and discuss Nora’s research on the governance of childhood vaccination.

The “Kronen Zeitung”, a major Austrian media outlet, published an article on a presentation given by Katharina T. Paul in November at the conference “Corona verstehen. Take 5: Was bleibt von Corona” (Innsbruck, Austria). Amongst others things, she presented empirical findings (jointly with Nora Hansl) on how paediatricians and parents perceive of mandatory vaccination in Austria.

The newspaper article was published on January 4, 2025. An online version can be found here: https://www.krone.at/3642891