Kira Abstiens has been a Researcher at IHS since November 2020 and in the research group Social Sustainable Transformation since 2025. She completed her studies in Psychology at the University of Vienna with a Master of Science. During her studies, she gained first experiences in policy-oriented research through an internship at Conpolicy–Institute for Consumer Policy in Berlin.

In her behavioural research, she is interested in how social, psychological and contextual factors influence individual and collective decision-making behaviour, especially when dealing with complex societal challenges such as climate change, digitalization and social inequality. She combines experimental and survey methods with qualitative approaches (e.g. interviews, observations) to analyze patterns of human behaviour. Its goal is to gain insights that can support practical applications and policy-making, and thus promote sustainable and social transformation.