Eugen Banauch, 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 been working at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, where he heads the Research Management department; during this time, the university’s research funding has been professionalised and the proportion of third-party funding in the research sector has 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.
Banauch is also responsible for innovative programmes designed to promote research and mobility, such as the interdisciplinary and co-creative travel grants ‘With Dylan on the Road’ – a sort of ‘university on the road’ – and the Mozarteum Research Competition, which has established itself as a key driver of research quality, success in securing external funding, and a forward-looking research culture within the institution.
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 choir singers, 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 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 scientific research, and its digital transformation.