Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: 

• Choose an appropriate set of research methods to tackle an applied research question in interaction with a “real customer”. 

• Develop technical prototypes or socio-technical processes to address real-world problems faced by energy enterprises in the digital economy. 

• Evaluate different strategies or prototypes against the background of the specific situation in the enterprise. 

• Perform a structured literature search on a given topic. 

• Design an experiment, prototype, or empirical study for a specific research question through a research project. 

• Identify and deploy appropriate analysis and evaluation methods and interpret their results. 

• Write a research report according to current academic standards from the relevant disciplines describing the research project and its outcomes, including a perspective of how the research results could be implemented in the enterprise. 

• Translate the specific project results into generalizable suggestions for other companies facing similar problems (e.g., design patterns). 

The rules on the attendance of a Continuous Assessment Course (PI) apply. See the dedicated page on the WU portal for further information. Quote from that page: " Pursuant to the general guidelines issued by the Vice-Rector for Academic Programs and Student Affairs, the attendance requirement is met if a student is present at least 80% of the time."

In this course, students bridge the ‘theory-practice gap’ by conducting an interdisciplinary practice-triggered and research-based project. Students go through all phases of the project from developing the research question, conducting literature research, generating hypotheses, implementing experimental or empirical studies, analyzing experimental data or empirical data, to interpreting the results and critically interpreting them. In addition to methodological and technical knowledge, students gain practical experience in planning and implementing a research project in collaboration with practitioners. Students work together in groups and are regularly coached by the course instructors. 

1. Research project plan incl. tasks, responsibilities and milestones (15%) 
2. Intermediate result report incl. update of research project plan, draft of research paper (15%) 
3. Peer review (10 %) 
4. Final report (40%) incl. research paper, critical reflection of project plan and project work („lessons learned“), project result poster 
5. Final presentation (20%) 

Grading scale: 

90% to 100% Excellent (1) 

80% to <90% Good (2) 

70% to <80% Satisfactory (3) 

60% to <70% Sufficient (4) 

<60% Fail (5) 

Please log in with your WU account to use all functionalities of read!t. For off-campus access to our licensed electronic resources, remember to activate your VPN connection connection. In case you encounter any technical problems or have questions regarding read!t, please feel free to contact the library at readinglists@wu.ac.at.