The Environmental Policy Research Center (FFU) has been awarded a new European research project. WinWind (Acronym for „Winning social acceptance for wind energy in wind energy scarce regions“) will be funded by the EU Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020. Besides the FFU, eleven partner organizations from Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain are involved in the project. The FFU is in charge of heading the research consortium, coordinated by Dr. Maria-Rosaria Di Nucci und Michael Krug.

Within the framework of WinWind research centers, national energy agencies, renewable energy organizations and consulting groups co-operate. The project analyses regional and local communities´ specific aspects, socioeconomic, spatial & environmental characteristics and the reasons for slow market deployment in selected target regions. Furthermore, WinWind aims to identify inhibiting and driving factors for social acceptance, to carry out stakeholder dialogues and consultations in the target regions, to stimulate transfers of good practice solutions to specific local, regional and national contexts and to derive policy recommendations.

The overall budget encompasses 2,1 Million euros, the share for the Free University will be 534.000 euros. The project will start on the 1st of October and has an duration of 30 months.