Rainer Graefe is an honorary doctor at the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. He has held several prestigious positions in academia and professional organizations throughout his career. Rainer was a professor and dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Innsbruck, where he also served as the director of the Institute of Architecture History and Conservation and founded the Archive for Architecture and Structural Engineering.

His contributions to the field have been recognized with numerous accolades, including the Suchov Gold Medal from the Union of Scientific and Engineering Associations and the Engineering Sciences Academy A.A. Prochorov in Moscow. Rainer is the president of the Tiroler Sachverständigenbeirat für Stadtkern- und Ortsbildschutz and a member of the Council for the Protection of Monuments of Austria. He is also a member of ICOMOS in Germany and Austria, DOCOMOMO in Austria, and an academic at the Sant Jordi Catalan Royal Academy of Arts.