Leonhard Plank is a Senior Scientist at the Centre of Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, TU Wien. He is also part of the Foundational Economy Collective, a transdisciplinary research network promoting the renewal of the infrastructure of everyday life. In that context, he recently initiated a research platform involving more than 40 professors and senior researchers from across 15 universities and research institutions in Austria.
His PhD focused on socio-economic development potentials within global production networks of electronics and clothing industries in CEE and was funded by the DOC-team fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He´s been a visiting scholar at the University of Manchester, UCL, Institute of Human Sciences, University of Cape Town, and the Berlin Social Science Center WZB and conducted research for international institutions, including the ILO and the World Bank.
Besides his research on global production, Leonhard has conducted several projects for public institutions investigating the economics and politics of many critical infrastructure sectors, including water and sanitation, energy, waste management, housing, and healthcare.