Headline: Blog

The 2020s have arrived as a decade of multiple crises. Beyond their devastating impact, however, these crises have also changed our political debates. For instance, all around the world, we have started to think of “transformation”: To cope with the present challenges, we need to go beyond making small adjustments, efficiency improvements, and grabbing the low-hanging fruits and fundamentally alter our current way of life. The discussion has reached the heart of our economies and, first and foremost, those sectors that ten years ago we thought almost impossible to decarbonize such as the steel industry.

hosted by Czech Globe - Global Change Research Institute CAS. The Transformations Conference, with the main theme: "Transformative Partnerships for a Better World" was actually held on-site in Sydney from 12-14 July 2023, but due to environmental considerations to reduce international travel by activists and researchers, it was extended to include a workshop in Portland, Maine, and a European Hub in Prague. The different strands were brought together via an online platform with live broadcasts and networking opportunities. Together, they were able to discuss and highlight the role of effective, inclusive, and transformative partnerships in practice.

To what, exactly, are we referring, you may ask?

What is Transformative Research? What kind of knowledge and capacities can research contribute to societal transformation? And how (much) should scientists reflect and adapt their own roles in complex processes of societal change and transform their practice? These questions took centre-stage at a workshop on "Advancing Transformative Research" hosted by the Centre for Innovation Systems & Policy Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) in December 2022.

Building on both observation and the findings of various studies, a new RIFS Discussion Paper examines the use of online communication tools during the coronavirus pandemic and draws several conclusions for the future of online participation. Overall, this grand experiment in the use of online communication tools very clearly demonstrated their limits, and a number of lessons can be learned from this for the future.

Energy markets have clearly failed to accelerate the deployment of renewables. But as the pendulum swings in the direction of state intervention, policymakers must create the conditions for the public and private sectors to work together to manage a timely green transition and avoid a popular backlash against climate goals.

Running over three years, the research project "Demokon - A Democratic Conflict Culture for the Energy Transition" studied the characteristics of energy transition conflicts, explored their interactions with political populism, and considered options to improve their resolution. The project was funded by the Mercator Foundation and carried out by researchers from the Research Institute for Sustain (RIFS), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research, the University of Siegen and the communications agency Institut für Raum und Energie.

The European continent dominated the global hydrogen race before 2022, with France, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and the European Union all presenting ambitious hydrogen strategies by 2020 that outlined their major areas of action and objectives, along with key policy interventions to achieve those goals. Nonetheless, in the fall of 2022, the world's attention shifted to the United States. An initial draft of its long-awaited Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap was published by the US Department of Energy (DOE), and in the summer of 2023, the final version of the strategy was issued (U.S. National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, referred to hereafter as “the strategy”).

There is growing interest in sustainability among orchestras, ensembles and concert halls in Germany. Does this signal the beginning of a broader transformation towards a sustainable concert industry? What must be done to lay the foundations for this change? Organised by the Research Institute for Sustainability and Potsdam Chamber Academy, the July conference “Face the Music! Developing the Orchestra Sustainably” brought together a host of actors from the German cultural and concert sectors as well as from sustainability research and politics to discuss these issues and more.

In recent years, both activists and researchers have started to invoke the term "fossil imperialism" to highlight the ways in which imperialist politics are tied up with the logic of fossil capitalism. Under fossil capitalism, ceaseless accumulation of capital necessitates continued expansion of an energy base of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Neighbourhoods across Berlin are embracing the "superblock" concept as studies show that they reduce through traffic, encourage cycling and promote the use of public transport services.

The international exhibition “Examples to follow! – Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability” has returned to its initial station in Berlin after 13 years on the road. The exhibition has been shown in Addis Ababa, Lima and Beijing, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Puebla, Haifa and Jerusalem, as well as in Bonn, Bremen, Essen, and Hamburg.

RIFS fellow Giovanni Mascarenhas explains the relationship between corporate compliance and ESG activities against the backdrop of efforts to rein in the power of social media in Brazil.

Global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change have boosted interest in the findings of scientific research. Liliann Fischer, Head of Quality and Transfer at Wissenschaft im Dialog, and Philipp Prein, Head of Communications at Agora Verkehrswende, spoke with RIFS fellows and researchers in late April on building better dialogue between science, society and politics. Effective science communication should not be left to chance and requires input from communications experts, participants at the workshop agreed.

In their decarbonisation journey, European countries have so far focused on policies to dramatically increase the share of renewables and improve energy efficiency across diverse sectors, including industry, construction and housing. However, it has become clear that renewables alone will not enable the industrial sector to achieve its decarbonisation goals, as a large share of the carbon dioxide emissions from industry are emitted during manufacturing processes. Emerging technologies for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) as well as hydrogen (H2) are currently being explored as the most promising solutions.

At the end of February 2023, the research project DÁVGI: Co-creation for biocultural diversity in the Arctic held the second in a series of workshops aimed at further establishing and strengthening CO-CREATE, a collective of like-minded Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers.