MCI professorship to Barbara Lill-Rastern

In recognition of her achievements in research and teaching, the exemplary translation of research achievements into practice and the associated contributions to the further development of the MCI and the higher education sector in general, the MCI recently awarded Professor Barbara Lill-Rastern the title of Professor.

 
Barbara Lill-Rastern has been a member of the MCI Faculty since 2015. Initially an external lecturer, she has been a permanent member of the Social Work Department since 2016. As a full-time lecturer, she works on topics such as qualitative and quantitative research methods, intercultural communication, social psychology, child protection and participation, youth development and social management.

She completed her studies at the Leopold Franzens University of Innsbruck in 2011 with a dissertation. Her professional career has taken her through several research assignments, including  the University of Linz and the University Hospital Innsbruck as well as SOS Kinderdorf International, where she held various positions ranging from head of the research department to consulting for international projects in the field of child protection and child participation. As a lecturer and researcher at the MCI, she distinguishes herself through outstanding commitment, fairness and objectivity, immense academic expertise and international experience.

In her inaugural lecture on "Scientific knowledge or the right time to make a statement", Lill-Rastern guided the audience through the basics of epistemology. She described thought and perception mechanisms relevant to everyday life, such as complexity reduction, perception errors, cognitive abbreviations or socio-psychological phenomena such as group membership. In order to achieve valid scientific findings, these errors of perception and thought must be eliminated. In addition, the influence of everyday human mechanisms, perceptual errors, errors of thought and possible ideological orientations must be more stringently limited; in addition, epistemological concepts such as rationalism, empiricism or constructivism must be taken into account, since the respective position of the researchers has an influence on research theoretical decisions and research designs. Ignoring diverging research results, simplification and shortening, or intentional distortion of scientific findings for one's own benefit are further sources of danger when transferring scientific findings into (professional) practice.

In the presence of companions, colleagues, students, friends and family, MCI Rector Andreas Altmann, together with the Chair of the MCI Collegium, Univ.-Prof. FH-Prof. Dr. Franz Pegger and Department Head FH-Prof. Dr.habil. Belachew Gebrewold, presented the certificate of appointment.