Cognitive Science Expertise Directory

This directory was developed within the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, an interdisciplinary organisational unit at the University of Vienna that connected cognitive science researchers across faculties. One of the Hub’s core goals was making this distributed, multi-faculty community visible to itself and to external collaborators.

The Hub concluded its activities at the end of March 2026. This directory was built to continue that function digitally — a persistent, searchable platform with AI-assisted matching to identify connections that informal networks alone might miss.

This tool uses u:ai, the University of Vienna’s own AI infrastructure, operating on servers within the European Union under the University’s institutional data protection policies. No data is processed by external commercial AI providers. The design reflects the data minimisation principle under GDPR: only what is strictly necessary for the analysis is sent.

Sent to the AI: Research field, current research, expertise, research program, methods used, research approach, and collaboration interests — under an anonymous code (e.g. R042), not your name.

Never sent: Your name, email, ORCID, affiliation, faculty, department, and lab. These are only shown in the local directory interface after the AI returns its results.

Two reasons — legal and methodological. Legally, sending names and affiliations is unnecessary when anonymous codes work equally well. Methodologically, anonymization prevents name- or institution-based bias: a researcher’s fit for collaboration should follow from their work, not their position or reputation.

The analysis identifies semantic overlap — shared language, themes, and methods — across 56 profiles. It has no access to publication records, grant histories, or citation networks. Match quality depends on the richness of profile descriptions; sparse entries surface fewer connections. Results may miss relevant matches or occasionally suggest weak ones. They are a structured starting point for human judgment, not a substitute for it.

Write a specific project description rather than a broad topic. For example, “I want to combine eye-tracking and EEG to study attention during aesthetic experiences of contemporary art” will surface more targeted matches than “neuroscience and art.”

You can also use the faculty and department filters to narrow the profile pool before running the analysis, or select a funding call to frame the analysis around a specific programme’s requirements.

Profile data is stored on University of Vienna servers and is not shared with third parties. The AI analysis runs on the University’s own infrastructure (u:ai) within the EU. No profile data is used for AI model training. You can request changes to or removal of your profile at any time.

If your research connects to cognitive science and you would like to be listed, use the Request to be listed link at the bottom of this page. If you are currently listed and would prefer to be removed, contact hubert.pawlowski@univie.ac.at.

Cognitive Science
Expertise Directory

Cognitive Science Expertise Directory

53 Researcher profiles

No researcher profiles found

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Cognitive ScienceExpertise Directory

Cognitive Science Expertise Directory

53 Researcher profiles

No researcher profiles found

Cognitive Science
Expertise Directory