Klemens Kaps holds a MA and PhD in history from the University of Vienna with a thesis on trade, economic development and modernization discourses in Habsburg Galicia between 1772 and 1914 (2011). In his second (habilitation) thesis, defended at the Johannes Kepler Universität in Linz in 2022, he investigated trade flows, commodity chains, mercantile networks and mercantilist political economy between Central Europe and the Spanish Monarchy during the 18th century. He is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social and Economic History at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz since 2020. Previously he has worked as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Department for East European History at the University of Vienna (2007-2010), as lecturer in the Department of Economic and Social History at the same university (2010-2011, 2016), postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Modern History at the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville between 2011 and 2015, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Vienna (2016-2018) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Contemporary History at the Johannes Kepler Universität in Linz (2018-2020). He has directed two research projects funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) between 2011 and 2013 (at the UPO) and between 2016 and 2023 at the Universities of Vienna and Linz on the relations between the Hispanic Monarchy and the Habsburg Empire in the 18th century and on mercantile connectors between global markets and Central Europe between the Peace of Utrecht and the Congress of Vienna.

Since 2020 he has been a member of the editorial board of the journal Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, as well as a member of the editorial advisory board of the Zeitschrift für Österreichische Geschichtswissenschaften. He has been a member of several research projects, including “The polycentric model of shared sovereignty (16th-18th centuries)” (2015-2018), “Res Publica Monarquica” (2019-2022), directed by Manuel Herrero Sánchez, and “The nerves of war”, directed by Rafael Torres Sánchez (2016-2019). He is currently a member of the research projects HISFIMED, directed by Francisco Cebreiro Ares and Benoît Maréchaux, and ATLANREX, directed by Cristina Bravo Lozano and Manuel Herrero Sánchez.

His publications include a monograph in the Böhlau publishing house, collective works in the Studienverlag and Routledge publishing houses and several journal monographs in Historyka (Poland), Review of the Fernand Braudel Center, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften and Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte. In his publications he deals with external and domestic trade of the Habsburg Monarchy between the 17th and 19th centuries and its relationship to changes in production and economic policy. Against this background, he also focuses on the analysis of modernization discourses related to the imaginary of imperial and national scope in Habsburg Central Europe from a post-colonial approach.

In his other line of research, he explores transnational mercantile networks in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic during the 18th century that were intermediaries in the trade between Spain and the Habsburg Monarchy. This work focuses on the mechanisms of insertion of Central European merchants in long-distance trade networks, the relations between merchants and the state, the impact of trade on commodity chains and the flows of products and capital. His work has been funded by an Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, 2011-2013) and a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship (2013-2014).