Borrowing personal protective equipment (PPE) for visitors & outreach activities

We have lab coats in all sizes (Mini, Kids, XS-S, M, L-XL) and safety goggles (including those to put on over normal glasses) available to lend them to visitors of our labs and attendees of outreach activities. They are situated in the storage cabinet BC03 A38 (left door). These resources should serve our Faculty to ensure safe lab visits and outreach activities. To facilitate the shared use, please adhere to the following guidelines.

Information about labcoat use

• February/September are Mitmachlabor-months: During this time, the coats on the rack are reserved and must not be borrowed without notice to katharina.ehrmann@tuwien.ac.at to ensure that the Mitmachlabor outreach activity can proceed with enough safety equipment despite borrowing.
• Correct storage: Most labcoats are on hangars on a clothing rack, sorted by size. If you take them from there, be sure to put them back on the right hanger (metal for XS-S, white for M, black for L-XL) and in the right section of the rack to facilitate intuitive use also for the next person. If there is no space on the rack or it's February/September (Mitmachlabor-months, in which the coats on the rack are reserved and cannot be borrowed without notice to katharina.ehrmann@tuwien.ac.at), you can put the labcoats into the respective shelf in this room (see labels on the shelves!).
• Correct return:  If the coat has only been used briefly and is still clean, put it back for storage according to the guidelines above. If the coat has been used excessively, do not just put it back but rather put it into the "TO WASH" basket in the bottom shelf in BC03 A38 and send an email to isolde.hisch@tuwien.ac.at. She will wash the coat and return it afterwards. 

Information about safety goggle use

• The safety goggles have been distributed to several brown boxes (top right shelf in BC03 A38). 3 boxes contain each 10 goggles (4 squared goggles, 4 round goggles, 2 goggles to put over glasses). 1 box contains old safety goggles in case there is a lot of demand. They can still be used but don't look as modern.
• Please only take as many goggles/boxes as you really need. This way, several people can borrow them at the same time.
• Please clean the goggles (wipe with acetone) before putting them back.

Equipment borrowing procedure

TUW-wide guidelines for outreach activities

Sources for official information & documents related to outreach

Many questions around outreach at TU Wien, including child protection concept, are resolved on this centralized sharepoint (infos, point of contact, Q&A section where you can also add your own questions): Kinderschutz-Konzept

Some important information extracted from there can be found below (last updated: 08 Jul 2026).

Central contact person around child protection & outreach 

At TU Wien, Laurenz Katamay (click for link to TISS) is responsible for outreach matters, including child protection measures:

• Phone: +43 1 58801 41446
• Adress: Gußhausstraße 27-29, 1040 Wien, Österreich
• E-Mail: laurenz.katamay@tuwien.ac.at

Requirements for the supervision of minors at TU Wien

Requirements for the internships of minors at TU Wien

At the age of 14, students are not allowed to do anything with us for reasons of age, i.e. not to work actively.

Additionally, we are officially not allowed to accept interns without pay. Without payment, the internship can only be held as part of practical working days ("Schulpraktische Tage"/"Schnupperlehre"): these are provided by the school, and a contract is signed by the school, parents and head of the institute. The maximum for practical working days are 4 days, the students are mainly there to watch, and any work/experiment ect directly executed by the student is only allowed on a voluntary basis, i.e. if the student expressively wants to do it.  However, there is an exception for Rosensteingasse regarding unpaid internships. Since we have not had this case in our group yet, detailed infos should be entered here once we have them due to a first case.

If you or the student finds funding for a paid internship, this funding must be cleared by the vice rectorate for personnel as suitable for the internship of minors. In some cases, the funding may be insufficient to employ at the right level, and additional costs may occur, which cannot be covered by the funds. This can only be found out in advance if the funding is presented to VR for personnel, who can verify if the requirements by TU Wien and potentially the funder can be covered by the funding obtained.

Reasoning behind these rules according to VR for personnel (Natalia Polemis, Sabine Waiss, translated from German): "With Rosensteingasse we have an exception and I tend to see 4 days as not too critical. Often, however, unpaid trainees or interns were taken on who subsequently provided supposedly usable work for institutes, so we really have an issue because they would have to be paid. Unfortunately, we cannot estimate in which org units the young people actually do not perform and in which they do. That is why we have become so strict on this point."

Documents for "Schnupperlehre":

...or direct links to these documents:

Microsoft Word - Vereinbarung_Schnupperlehre (002).doc

Microsoft Word - Bestätigung_Schnupperlehre.doc