Renata Schmidtkunz

Renata Schmidtkunz, born in 1964 in Hattingen in the Ruhr region, grew up in an evangelical parsonage in Austria. She studied Protestant theology and worked at Austrian public broadcaster ORF in Vienna from 1990 to 2025 as an editor, presenter and documentary filmmaker. From 1994 to 1998, she taught systematic theology at the University of Vienna’s Protestant theological faculty. At ORF, she hosted the television program “Club 2” and presented the radio program “Im Gespräch.” She received the City of Vienna Prize for Journalism in 2012 and the Axel Corti Prize in 2014. Her publications include “Himmlisch frei. Warum wir wieder mehr Transzendenz brauchen” (“Heavenly Free: Why We Need More Transcendence Again”).