Eugen Banauch has been Vice-Rector of Research at the Mozarteum University Salzburg since 1 April 2026. A scholar of literature and cultural studies, he studied in Vienna and Sussex and has conducted research and taught in North America, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and at the University of Vienna. His study on Jewish literary exile in North America (Fluid Exile) attracted international attention. He has also published academic and popular works on Bob Dylan and his reception in Europe; his book Austrobob was published by Falter-Verlag, and his anthology Refractions of Bob Dylan was cited in the Nobel Prize Committee’s statement in 2016.
After years of intensive teaching and research, particularly in the field of North American literature and culture, his focus shifted increasingly towards issues of higher education development and research funding, as well as topics such as New Work, academic and artistic integrity, innovative forms of academic collaboration, and digital transformation processes in higher education.
At the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), he headed the programme for the development and promotion of the arts from 2011 to 2015 and initiated the Elise Richter PEEK programme. Since 2019, Eugen Banauch has headed the Research Management department at the Mozarteum University Salzburg; during this time, the university’s research funding has been professionalised and the proportion of third-party funding in the area of research increased. With his involvement, projects were successfully secured for the first time across numerous funding formats, including PEEK and FWF individual projects, a Connecting Minds project, and an ERDF/FFG infrastructure project for the UMAK’s X-Reality Lab.
Eugen Banauch is also responsible for innovative programmes to promote research and mobility, including the interdisciplinary and co-creative travel grants With Dylan on the Road – a a kind of “university on the road” – and the Mozarteum Research Competition, which has established itself as a key driver of research quality, an effective instrument for securing third-party funding, and an important force in shaping a forward-looking research culture at the university.
As the son of a tuba-playing writer and an educator who grew up in Istanbul, the grandson of a concert pianist, and the father of two cathedral choristers, he is rooted in an environment where art, research, and an international outlook naturally come together. Together with his wife, he is also involved in couples therapy and family coaching. Eugen Banauch combines his international academic experience — with posts in Europe, the USA, Canada, and Israel — with a close attachment to the Mozarteum University and a commitment to sustainably strengthening its international orientation, innovative artistic and scholarly research, and its digital transformation.