News
Booklet by UrbanA project: Enabling Governance Arrangements for Sustainable and Just Cities (September 2021)
This booklet, authored by Sophia Silverton, Philipp Späth and Jakob Kramer from the Chair of Sustainability Governance, presents their work on governance for sustainable and just cities in the UrbanA project. The publication is aimed at helping city-makers (municipal officials, civil society members, private sector members etc.) as they design and implement local initiatives.
Many valuable insights within the booklet were contributed by participants at UrbanA's online conference in March 2021 (see this previous news release: https://www.envgov.uni-freiburg.de/de/prof-sugov/news-archiv-sus-governance/governance-sustainable-just-cities).
Inside the booklet you will find plenty of colourful drawings, videos and case studies that bring the Enabling Governance Arrangements to life. You can access the booklet here: https://medium.com/urban-arenas-for-sustainable-and-just-cities/urbana-launches-booklet-of-enabling-governance-arrangements-90d095b8d94e
New blog post and video from UrbanA project (March 2021)
In the preparation for its third so-called ‘Arena’, lead-hosted by Philipp Späth’s research group on Urban Sustainability Governance, the project ‘UrbanA – Urban Arenas for Sustainable and Just Cities’ held a webinar on “Learning between cities with governance scenarios”. The webinar is documented in a blog post and a short video featuring Sophia Silverton.
Benjamin Hennchen successfully defended his dissertation (Jan 2021)
For the last four years, Benjamin Hennchen has worked as a doctoral candidate and research associate in the project KERNiG. On January 27, 2021, he successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Local Food Systems as Fields of Practice and Knowledge: Analysis of Work in Professional Kitchens and the Organization of Urban Food Initiatives”. Congratulations, Dr. Benjamin!
Virtual Final Conference ‘Critical Perspectives on Energy Transitions in Africa’ (December 2020)
From September to December 2020, a group of ten international scholars – including Michael Pregernig and Philipp Späth (as Principal Investigator and Convenor) – worked on the broad theme of ‘The Governance of Energy Transitions in the Global South’ as part of an Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG) at the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana. On December 14 and 15, 2020, the IFG showcased its research work in a virtual final conference.
Source: twitter.com
Organization of Panel at the POLLEN Conference (September 2020)
On September 22, 2020, Zabrina Welter co-organized and presented at the panel titled ‘New National Power Structures and Shifted Governance Agendas Disrupting Resource Access’ at the third biennial conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). The goal of this panel was to explore both theoretically and empirically national and subnational policies and policy processes for resource access from both the theoretical angle of Political Ecology and governance processes.
Start of ReSET project (August 2020)
August 2020 saw the kick-off of ‘Reconfiguring Energy for Social Equity’ (ReSET), a 4-year research project funded by the Volkswagenstiftung. Philipp Späth (as Principal Investigator) and Bleta Arifi (as PostDoc researcher) are part of a consortium of four research institutions, including the Urban Futures Studio at Utrecht University (consortium leader, The Netherlands), the Institute for Human Settlements (India), and the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). ReSET compares case studies in Germany, India, the Netherlands and South Africa to understand how the global energy transition can be made more equitable. It focuses on how ‘software’, in form of policy regimes, determines the flow of investments in the hardware of energy infrastructures. Together with diverse stakeholders, the project aims to develop a generic framework and gain concrete insights that can inform future policies.
Source: vimeo.com
Publication of edited volume on environment, conflict and migration (April 2020)
From October 2017 to September 2018, Tim Krieger, Diana Panke, and Michael Pregernig led a project group on ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Environmental Conflict and Related Migration’ at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS). The key result of this cooperation is an edited volume published by Bristol University Press (BUP) in April 2020 exploring the interdependencies between environmental conflicts and migration, as well as the governance challenges in this respect.
Source: bristoluniversitypress.co.uk