Ueli Reber
About
I used to be a political scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), the University of Bern, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). I earned my doctorate in social sciences at the University of Bern. I also hold a master’s degree in geography from the University of Bern.
My research interests included environmental policy, political communication, and the science-policy interface. Most of the evidence I produced is based on the analysis of texts.
Publications
Research publications | Outreach publications | Tools and data
Research publications
Hofmann, B., Reber, U., Ammann, P., Dötzer, J., Mark, J., McCallum, C., Wiget, M., & Zachmann, L. (2025). A typology of interdisciplinary collaborations: insights from agri-food transformation research, Sustainability Science. doi: 10.1007/s11625-025-01702-x
[Open access]
Reber, U., Ingold, K., & Fischer, M., (2023). The role of actors’ issue and sector specialization for policy integration in the parliamentary arena: an analysis of Swiss biodiversity policy using text as data. Policy Sciences. doi: 10.1007/s11077-022-09490-2
[Open access, full replication data/code on Zenodo]
Hofmann, B., Ingold, K., Stamm, C., Ammann, P., Eggen, R. I. L., Finger, R., Fuhrimann, S., Lienert, J., Mark, J., McCallum, C., Probst-Hensch, N., Reber, U., Tamm, L., Wiget, M., Winkler, M. S., Zachmann, L., & Hoffmann, S. (2022). Barriers to evidence use for sustainability: Insights from pesticide policy and practice. Ambio. doi: 10.1007/s13280-022-01790-4
[Open access]
Reber, U., Fischer, M., Ingold, K., Kienast, F., Hersperger, A. M., Grütter, R., & Benz, R. (2022). Integrating biodiversity: A longitudinal and cross-sectoral analysis of Swiss politics. Policy Sciences, 55, 311-335. doi: 10.1007/s11077-022-09456-4
[Open access, full replication data/code on EnviDat]
Reber, U. (2021). Global climate change or national climate changes? An analysis of the performance of online issue publics in integrating global issues. Environmental Communication, 15(2), 173-188. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2020.1812685
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository]
Adam, S.*, Reber, U.*, Häussler, T.*, & Schmid-Petri, H. (2020). How climate change skeptics (try to) spread their ideas: Using computational methods to assess the resonance among skeptics’ and legacy media. PLoS ONE, 15(10), 1-23. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240089
[Open access, R code on GitHub, *equal contribution]
Schmid-Petri, H., Reber, U., Arlt, D., Elgesem, D., Adam, S., & Häussler, T. (2020). A dynamic perspective on publics and counterpublics: The role of the blogosphere in pushing the issue of climate change during the 2016 US presidential campaign. Environmental Communication, 14(3), 378-390. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2019.1677738
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository]
Adam, S., Häussler, T., Schmid-Petri, H., & Reber, U. (2019). Coalitions and counter-coalitions in online contestation: An analysis of the German and British climate change debate. New Media & Society, 21(11-12), 2671-2690. doi: 10.1177/1461444819855966
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository]
Reber, U. (2019). Overcoming language barriers: Assessing the potential of machine translation and topic modeling for the comparative analysis of multilingual text corpora. Communication Methods and Measures, 13(2), 102-125. doi: 10.1080/19312458.2018.1555798
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository, R code on GitHub]
Schmid-Petri, H., Adam, S., Reber, U., Häussler, T., Maier, D., Miltner, P., Pfetsch, B., & Waldherr, A. (2018). Homophily and prestige: An assessment of their relative strenght to explain link formation in the online climate change debate. Social Networks, 55, 47-54. doi: 10.1016/j.socnet.2018.05.001
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository]
Maier, D., Waldherr, A., Miltner, P., Wiedemann, G., Niekler, A., Keinert, A., Pfetsch, B., Heyer, G., Reber, U., Häussler, T., Schmid-Petri, H., & Adam, S. (2018). Applying LDA topic modeling in communication research: Toward a valid and reliable methodology. Communication Methods and Measures, 12(2-3), 93-118. doi: 10.1080/19312458.2018.1430754
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository]
Häussler, T., Adam, S., Schmid-Petri, H., & Reber, U. (2017). How political conflict shapes online spaces. A comparison of climate change hyperlink networks in the U.S. and Germany. International Journal of Communication, 11, 3096–3117. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/5644
[Open access]
Häussler, T., Schmid-Petri, H., Adam, S., Reber, U., & Arlt, D. (2016). The climate of debate: How institutional factors shape legislative discourses on climate change. Studies in Communication Sciences, 16, 94-102. doi: 10.1016/j.scoms.2016.04.002
[Manuscript on BORIS open repository]
Adam, S., Häussler, T., Schmid-Petri, H., & Reber, U. (2016). Identifying and Analyzing Hyperlink Issue Networks. In G. Vowe & P. Henn (Eds.), Political Communication in the Online World: Theoretical Approaches and Research Designs (pp. 233–247). New York, London: Routledge.
[Book can be found online]
Outreach publications
Fischer, M., & Reber, U. (2022). Im Schatten des politischen Fokus. Aqua Viva, 4/22, 30-31.
Moor, H., Gossner, M. M., Graham, C., Hobi, M. L., Logar, I., Narwani, A., Reber, U., Seehausen, O., Holderegger, R., & Altermatt, F. (2022). Besserer Biodiversitätsschutz in Blau-Grünen Ökosystemen. N+L Inside, 1/22, 25-29.
Moor, H., Gossner, M. M., Graham, C., Hobi, M. L., Holderegger, R., Reber, U., Altermatt, F., Logar, I., Matthews, B., Narwani, A., Seehausen, O., & Shipley, R. (2021). Biodiversitätsschutz dank Ökosystem-übergreifendem Denken. Aqua & Gas, 12/21, 44-49.
Reber, U., Fischer, M., Ingold, K., Kienast, F., Hersperger, A. M., & Grütter, R., (2021). Die vielen Gesichter der Biodiversitätspolitik / Les multiples visages de la politique biodiversitaire. Hotspot, 44, 9.
Tools and data
Reber, U., Ingold, K., & Stamm, C. (2025). Data of the TRAPEGO analysis of evidence use in the public discourse on pesticides in Switzerland. doi: 10.25678/000EJP
[Open access]
Reber, U., Ingold, K., & Stamm, C. (2023). Codebook for the analysis of evidence use in the public discourse on pesticides in Switzerland. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.8124824
[Open access]