Headline: News 2021

The complex challenges of our time increasingly require scientists to step outside their conventional roles. A team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has examined innovative approaches to policy advice that support actors from politics and government in the development of collaborative processes to address socio-ecological issues. Their paper identifies the knowledge, skills and practices required to design collaborations.

Area-based management tools are an important means of protecting the ocean. In addition to marine protected areas, they include spatial regulations for activities such as fishing, shipping or deep sea mining, and more comprehensive approaches such as maritime spatial planning. These measures can contribute significantly to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the ocean. However, this requires better coordination of measures and effective implementation, as researchers have shown in a new study with the participation of the IASS.

The energy transition could become an opportunity or a geopolitical threat for a country. But what factors does the outcome depend on? This issue has recently been studied by several research teams. Prof. Andreas Goldthau reviews these efforts in the article “The Tricky Geoeconomics of Going Low Carbon”. He argues that structural factors and market power will decide which countries end up winners and which losers in decarbonising their economies.

How do trainees at the energy company LEAG view the structural transformation unfolding in Lusatia? What life paths and plans are they pursuing? Do they see their future in the region or further afield? What factors shape their thinking? And what kind of employment opportunities do they hope to see in the region? In a series of workshops, the trainees discussed these questions and developed a quantitative survey together with a team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS). The results of the survey have now been published in the study “Auszubildende im Lausitzer Strukturwandel” [Trainees in Lusatia’s Structural Transformation].

The German government has pledged to facilitate a just transition in the former coal region of Lusatia. What exactly does that mean on the ground? A new paper published in the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning by Konrad Gürtler (IASS) und Jeremias Herberg (Radboud Universität) examines the tensions between distributive justice and recognition in the context of public debate around the structural transformation in Lusatia.

Germany’s coal exit is associated with widespread and far-reaching structural change in the mining region of Lusatia. Decisions made today will shape the region for decades to come. Enhancing Lusatia’s appeal for young people is one important goal within this broad transformation process. A new IASS Policy Brief offers recommendations on how policymakers can involve young people in shaping the future of Lusatia.

Agriculture is a large but controversial area of gene technology. What opportunities and risks for sustainability are associated with applications like resistance breeding and genetic engineering to improve nutritional quality? IASS Director Ortwin Renn examines these issues in the “Fifth Gene Technology Report” of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He also recommends new forms of dialogue that can promote the responsible use of “green gene technology”.

Renewable energy technologies can be true job motors: in 2020, the renewable energy sector employed at least 12 million people around the globe. Renewables can create sustainable jobs and improve the gender balance in the future energy sector. To harness the full socio-economic potential of renewables and to build the skills base needed for the energy transition, decisionmakers depend on reliable data, and trusted expert organisations to facilitate sound assessments.

Scientists at ETH Zurich have built a plant that can produce carbon-neutral liquid fuels from sunlight and air. The next goal will be to take this technology to industrial scale and achieve competitiveness. In a paper published in the scientific journal "Nature", researchers from Zurich and Potsdam describe how this novel solar reactor functions and outline a policy framework that would provide incentives to expand the production of "solar kerosene".