Niklas Platzer

Niklas Platzer is a Researcher in the Department of History at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. He belongs to the 2023 cohort and specializes in environmental and economic history with particular focus on the Habsburg Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

His research interests include:

• Environmental History
• Economic History of Central Europe
• Agricultural and Industrial Development
• Mobilities History
• Habsburg Empire Studies

Platzer is actively involved in the Environmental History Working Group and Mobilities in history research cluster at the EUI. His doctoral research examines the beet-sugar industry within the Habsburg Empire between 1848/49 and 1914, supervised by Professor Pieter Judson with Lucy Riall as second reader. As a German national researcher at this prestigious European postgraduate institution, he contributes to interdisciplinary historical scholarship connecting environmental, economic, and imperial dimensions of historical change.