In 2015 several guiding global political agreements were passed: die 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the Sendai-Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.The implementation of resulting political goals remains improvable. The respective project examines how the potential of integrated policy approaches can be utilized to strengthen the agendas' implementation.

The functioning and efficiency performance of incumbent food systems are being questioned from different perspectives. Numerous social and technical innovations regarding production, products, and consumption occur. While they have been considered especially with respect to technical and economic feasibility and ecological impacts so far, issues of social cohesion have been neglected. However, this is particularly relevant for food systems – how and if innovations and transformations are fueled by social processes, and imply feedback effects on them is subject of this project.

The international agendas - Agenda 2030, Paris Climate Agreement - place new demands not only on partner countries of the GIZ but also on how to best give policy advice in international cooperation. Against this background, the FFU prepares an orientation paper for the GIZ, which from a perspective of transformation research identifies new approaches for environmental policy advice. The special challenges for modern environmental policy and for governing transformation processes in GIZ's partner countries are taken into account.

Duration: April 2018 - March 2019

Conventional food production and consumption are associated with negative environmental and health consequences. The project examines if environmental policy can support the transformation towards a sustainable food system by identifying options for policy interventions to promote innovative niches.

Transitions to sustainability imply that processes of change are shaped by both ecological and social perspectives. This concerns and involves environmental organizations as well as labor unions, and increasingly social and charity organizations. They share common interests in climate change mitigation, sustainability, distribution issues, and social cohesion – even though setting different emphasis. Under which conditions do co-operations occur? How are the stakeholders’ strategies, organizational structures and organizational cultures constituted, and in how far do they foster or hamper trans-sectoral co-operation?

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COME RES aims to facilitate the market uptake of RES in the electricity sector by supporting, with a set of specific activities, the implementation of the provisions for renewable energy communities (RECs) as defined in the new Renewable Energy Directive (EU) 2018/2001 to be transposed by the Member states by June 30, 2021. Taking a multi- and transdisciplinary approach, COME RES aids the development of RECs in nine European countries (BE, DE, IT, LV, NL, NO, PL, PT, SP).

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The project "Analysis and evaluation of policy measures and economic instruments for resource protection for the further development of ProgRess", published by the Federal Environmental Agency, will be submitted to the Fraunhofer Institute for System and Innovation Research (ISI), Forum sozial-ökologische Marktwirtschaft (FÖS) and the Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) of Freie Universität Berlin.

The study recapitulates the most important shortfalls and vacancies of the GDP figures. Founded on this analysis, the question of possible complementary indicators has been discussed.

The project studies the impacts of visioning processes and visions, which can exert on urban climate governance. In a participatory process, two selected small towns will develop urban visions on climate change adaptation, taking into special account the climatic impacts on the most vulnerable groups. The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research  funded a one year Definition Phase under its initiative “Zukunftsstadt” (future city). Meanwhile the Research and Development Phase started in October 2018 and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research as well.

Evidence-based policy making can contribute to increase the quality and sustainability of policy proposals, ensure coherence with other policy areas, decision-making levels, and central strategies as well as guarantee that long-term benefits and unintended costs are considered in the policy appraisal. In this way, quality and acceptance of a proposed policy can be increased. Moreover, accompanying measures can be developed early in the policy making process to avoid unwanted side-effects of the policy. Policy impact assessment (IA) was introduced in many countries as a central instrument for evidence-based policy making.

In contrast to a scientific analysis, IA is closely connected to the policy making process. It needs to cover a great variety of questions. Hence, IA also draws on a great variety of methods and a large body of knowledge, which can and should be used in the impact analysis. This complexity is often a challenge for policy makers.

In this project a training course will be developed, which will support GIZ staff and their partners in conducting IAs. It demonstrates how IA can be handled by using practice examples and case studies so that participants acquire the necessary knowledge to plan and conduct IAs. The training should:

• Convey the particularities of the IA process and its objectives;
• Encourage and enable the participants to break down the IA into process steps, and to select suitable methods for each process step;
• Enable the participants to use the results of the IA in the policy-making process and for further developing policy proposals.

The National Climate Initiative (NKI) of the Federal Ministry for Environment (BMUB) (https://www.klimaschutz.de/de) aims to contribute to the achievement of the national climate targets by implementing specific programs and by supporting the market up-take of innovative energy technologies and activities. It addresses consumers, business, municipalities and educational institutions. Funding is provided for different directives and programs and for a variety of individual projects.

As a contribution to implement the international decisions for the promotion of sustainable consumption and production the project´s aim was to deliver the technical basis for a “National Roadmap for Sustainable Consumption”.

Closing the loop on the use of resources is a central goal of the European and German waste policy and has potentially great synergies with resource and climate policies. The topic is also particularly relevant for emerging economies and developing countries given their fast growth of waste and the international challenges in the field of resource and climate policy.

The project analyses four selected emerging economies/ developing countries with regard to waste treatment. Based on an analysis of the existing framework conditions and capacities in these countries, possible contributions from the transfer of European and German approaches to waste treatment shall be outlined. These options will be discussed and further developed with local stakeholder in these countries. The results will later be published in country-specific publications and presented and discussed in a conference in Germany.

The particular involvement of FFU focuses on policy analysis of the waste policy framework conditions in Germany and the EU as well as the question of policy transfer.

The project Central elements of a transitional environmental policy concept aims to discuss the social and academic debates on the potential, conditions and challenges of a sustainable transition in environmental politics.

The 2016 Berlin Conference invited scholars and practitioners to discuss questions arising from the new and universal global climate agreement adopted at the UN climate change conference in Paris on 12 December 2015. In the light of the continuity and change that Paris will bring, the discussions and knowledge exchange evolved around international climate policy and politics in the larger context of global governance and the challenges of a transformation towards sustainable development in a turbulent world.

The project interlinks the 30 different projects of the funding measure ‘Sustainable Economy Activity” and develops contentual syntheses, which provide orientation and impulses for the further development of the area „Sustainable Economy Activity“. These syntheses should provide stimuli not only for science, but also for politics, economy and society. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to the strengthening of societal-political effects of the funded projects and the funding measure.

The project „Environmental Policy in the 21. Century – Approaches for Overcoming New Challenges“ pursues two aims: firstly, to define and explain blind spots and deficits of the environmental policy in the 20th century. In doing so, an overview of central environmental and sustainability patterns of arguments will be generated and assessed regarding their legitimacy for new environmental policies. These will be illustrated in an „environmental and sustainability policy map of discourse“. Secondly, based on the analysis of passed environmental policies the overall aim of the project is to clarify main ideas, concepts and strategies for an effective and ethically grounded environmental and sustainability policy in the 21st century on the basis of which a sustainable development can be achieved in both, countries of the global North and South. Hence, the project encompasses analytical as well as conceptual aims: Based on the „environmental and sustainability policy map of discourse“ contextual and strategic recommendations for the formulation of an environmental and sustainability policy in the 21st century will be developed.

The Framework Contract with the European Parliament includes external expert services in the fields of impact assessment and European added values in a broad range of areas. (more)

The core concern of the GIZ program RE-ACTIVATE for the MENA region is to create favourableconditions to combine the goals of transforming the energy systems with a sustainable economic development that creates domestic employment effects. The research is intended to contribute to the creation of functioning renewable energy and energy efficiency markets and support employment in the region. (more)

The project explores how and to what extent international public administrations (IPAs) interact with political and non-political actors of various levels during and in-between major international conferences.

The Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) of the Freie Universität Berlin organizes, with the financial support of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the conference "The EU renewable energy policy: challenges and opportunities".

The way public finances are raised and spent can be used as an important lever to affect various environmental problems and challenges – ranging from the Energiewende, climate protection, the management of increasingly scarce resources to the balancing of public budgets and the question how to build a form of sustainable growth. A greening of public finances can make a contribution to these challenges. 
Project timeframe: 02/2014 - 10/2015 

The Indo-German Expert Group is an interdisciplinary working group of renowned experts from leading research institutions / political think tanks in India and Germany. It was set up in 2013 to enhance collaborative learning, contribute to informed decision-making in both countries and feed into the international debate on a green and inclusive economy. 

November 2013 - 2018

The purpose of the research project supported by the Hans Böckler Foundation is to analyze the institutionalization of employment relations in the German wind industry taking into account the social, ecological and economic pillars of sustainable development.

The project develops a classification to bring together the supply side of the market and the various demands with the aim to contribute to the success of the technology mechanism of the UN framework convention on climate change. For that purpose, the study will analyse the technology needs assessment of emerging economies and developing countries taking part in the UNFCCC’s technology mechanism. In addition to that, the FFU will study the conditions for successful technology transfers and develop a map of the relevant actors in Germany in this field.

The core structure of the project “Transatlantic Urban Climate Dialogue plus” (TUCD+) is the same as the previous project “Transatlantic Urban Climate Dialogue” (TUCD). The dialogue between elected officials, senior corporate representatives, technical experts and practitioners from Germany, Canada and the United States on the mutually beneficial transfers and applications of Integrated Community Energy Plan (CEPs) among the metropolitan regions of Northern Virginia, Guelph, Stuttgart and the Ruhr Valley will be intensified by two further workshops.

The project "develop sustainability strategies successfully," which the Bertelsmann Foundation coordinates and performs together with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, offers a contribution to the development and advancement of sustainability strategies. Research will be done at the federal level, in particular by identifying best practices and analyzing their transferability.

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project aims at establishing a more sustainable and integrated research and innovation cooperation between the EU and the ASEAN region in the areas of climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials. More

The study provides an overview of the international debate on Green Jobs, and evaluates the existing empirical evidence on quantitative and qualitative employment effects of the transition to a Green Economy, particularly in developing and emerging countries.

The project will develop methodological approaches towards analyzing distributional effects of environmental policies that considers qualitative as well as quantitative income and employment effects.

The research project aims at developing specific suggestions for the use of economic instruments or combinations of economic instruments for the improvement of resource efficiency in Germany and the EU.

The Environmental Policy Research Centre participates in a large joint project with major German institutes ”Establishment of a research platform for nuclear waste material: Interdisciplinary analysis and development of criteria for assessment”.

Aim of the sub-project is primarily the policy and social analysis of the development of a strategy for a nuclear waste storage solution in Germany under participation of relevant stakeholders.

It is the aim of the study to analyze actions as well as quality goals of national and European sustainability policies with regard to their compatibility with the overarching guiding principles of European environmental programs. In this way the project aims at improving governance and steering among them.

The main reasons for the construction of a Horizon Scanning System are the apparent acceleration of ecological processes on the one hand and socio-economic changes on the other hand. For politicians, this raises the question of whether reactive breathlessness can be countered by earlier problem solving.

The research network aims at improved understanding of multi-level climate governance in India and the European Union. It will analyze the interplay between the innovation capacity of local levels through to (supra)national levels of climate change and variability governance.

This study provides an overview of available frameworks and methods for environmental impact assessment and analyzes their usability in the context of trade-related development cooperation. With the proposed stocktaking and assessment of existing frameworks and methods the study aims to contribute towards improving the practice and application of environmental impact assessments of trade-related policies and programs.

The Environmental Policy Research Centre of the Freie Universität Berlin and the LIAISE Network of Excellence (‘Linking Impact Assessment Instruments and Sustainability Expertise’) organize the 2012 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, which will be held on 5-6 October, 2012, in Berlin.

The project aims at supporting and stimulating the emerging political and social debate on resource policies from a political science, legal and economic perspective. For this purpose the discussion on targets and indicators will be analyzed and options identified for selecting, operationalizing and prioritizing targets on resource policy.

Bioenergy Promotion 2 is a so called Extension stage project (ESP) under the EU INTERERREG IVB Baltic Sea Region Programme. The overall aim of Bioenergy Promotion 2 is to strengthen and implement key results from the Main stage project Bioenergy Promotion (2009-2011) through demonstration, testing and transfer measures in selected demo regions and beyond.

The non-profit climate protection agency Bremen Energy Consensus and the GEWOBA incorporated company housing and construction co-started in agreement with the coordinators of the nationwide project “Stromsparcheck” from Caritas and eaD a similar project which is called “EnergieSparCheck for the tenants of GEWOBA".
This project aims at a reduction of CO2 of consulting and direct implementation of measures.

Klaus Jacob will be a member of the Expert Group that has been established by the European Commission in order to write a report that reflects the state of the art of responsible innovation, both in terms of what is to be understood under responsible research and innovation and what type of actions are already being conducted in Europe.

The Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) supports the project with its expertise in the field of “Green Economy”. Specifically, it supports the preparation of the country studies, summarizes and compares their main results so as to develop policy recommendations for the region as a whole, and prepares a comparable case study on “The German energy transition and its implications for green jobs”.

The DFG Research Unit address the complex scientific questions related to heat stress in mid-latitude cities by a multi- and interdisciplinary approach involving climatologists, urban geographers and hydrologists, physicians, architects, physicists and engineers, urban planners and social scientists.

This project contributes to measurement of progress towards Green Economy and its understanding for political decision making process in Germany. Based on a synopsis of rele-vant measurement concepts it identifies deficits of available concepts and develops suggestions for an adequate indicator system.

December 15, 2011 - September 30, 2014

The project aims at expanding the period of time covered by Germany’s Sustainability Strategy to the year 2030 and at sketching out the development until 2050. To do this, major issue areas and challenges need to be identified, and strategies and sub-targets for their implementation have to be developed.

During international research workshops, we address the question whether and how federal states serve as experimental laboratories to climate governance in the areas of promotion of renewable energies, energy conservation and climate action planning.

This project analyses how the policy impact of sustainability science can be raised in Germany. It aims at developing quality criteria for policy relevant research.

Schools@University is an innovative inter- and transdisciplinary educational format at the Freie Universität of Berlin that builds bridges between academia and civil society. Fifth and sixth graders and their teachers are invited to the FUB twice a year to gain in-depth knowledge on sustainability issues and critical thinking skills empowering them to effect changes within their everyday world and in society at large. The format is based on two pillars:

• A one-week program for 10 -13 years-olds featuring 75 interactive and participatory workshops.

• A half-day practical teacher training to encourage application of lessons learnt in their respective schools.

We develop the workshop designs together with 100 partners from academia (students, scientists and administration staff), the state of Berlin, local businesses/companies, art and culture institutions, as well as NGOs.

The Environmental Policy Research Centre is involved in the Alliance with a comprehensive project from the political science perspective. The project will investigate new governance requirements for the electricity system restructuring.

The research project investigates how governments in these countries integrate existing climate policies both horizontally and vertically.

The study will review the following countries regarding the consideration of aspects of sustainable development within their requirements for Impact Assessment: Austria, Australia, Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, UK and US. In addition, the approach of the European Union will be analyzed.

In the light of the upcoming Rio 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the study explores the stances of European civil society actors on issues related to the Green Economy as part of Sustainable Development.

A 7-day study tour for Russian experts will take place in Berlin in spring 2012. It aims to support the German-Russian knowledge and experience transfer in the fields of environmental politics and energy efficiency, as well as the incitement of a sustainable discussion about the potentials of renewable energy sources in Germany and Russia.

The „Transatlantic Urban Climate Dialogue“ aims to strengthen the transfer and application  of sustainable energy policies between Germany and North America.

The IKI is active in three fields: promoting climate-friendly economies, fostering measures to adapt to the effects of climate change and ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of natural carbon reservoirs, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

The aim of the report is to identify potentialities for the strengthening of sustainability policies in Germany and notably in the German Bundestag.

Funded by the Einstein Foundation, the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University Jerusalem and the Environmental Policy Research Centre at the Freie Universität Berlin host a workshop series dealing with the chances and obstacles of integrated environmental governance.

The Luxembourg Sustainability Plan foresees the conduction of a sustainability check for national policy initiatives.

The initative SUSTAIN IT! has the comprehensive goal of discussing local and global questions  of sustainability in the fields of politics, science, economics, adminstration, technology, society and education.

Currently, an environmentally recyclable concept of a socio-ecological, sustainable growth and social model is missing, which would be a reference point for future economic and social prosperity and corresponding transformation processes.

The Environmental Policy Research Centre gives an overview on the recent developments in sustainability impact assessment (SIA). The study looks at innovations in SIA processes within the European Commission and five European countries.

The aim of this particular project is to provide consulting for the planning and implementation of the federal program "Energy efficiency of an urban district in the town of Apatity" (Murmansk region/Russia) within the framework of the German-Russian Knowledge Exchange.

The study gives an overview on environmentally harmful subsidies and, by comparing costs and benefits of these, outlines the need to act and options to guide the process of reducing subsidies.

This research project compares lead markets in the EU with cases in China, India and Brazil.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is already a standardised and institutionalised framework, which has been in place for decades and has been integrated in legislation and regulation for many years. However, EIA has also been thoroughly criticized for being a marginal and disconnected procedure with no real influence on decision-making processes.

The aim of this project is to identify means for improving the effectiveness of RIA in enhancing policy coherence in the design and implementation of regulatory and environmental policy.

This study analyses options for the design of a Sustainability Impact Assessment for the OECD.

This year’s Berlin conference seeks to move the social dimensions of environmental change and governance to the foreground, as societies both in industrialized countries and in developing countries face potentially dramatic environmental changes and will have to undergo fundamental transformations to achieve sustainable development.

The project "Scenarios for an integrated sustainable development policy using the example of the Sustainable City 2030" contributes to the development of strategies for the design of sustainable urban living environments by applying empirically based and participative scenario methods.

This study will take stock of the experiences made by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) in the provision of technical assistance in the field of environmental policy in relevant Asian countries (e.g. China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand).

The aim of the project is to improve the operational relevance and use of IA tools by uniting the multi-disciplinary competences of large European institutes in the field of IA tools.

The research project on behalf of the Federal Environmental Agency studies export initiatives for environmental technologies. This is done on the basis of surveys and the analysis of further evaluation studies.

The National Climate Initiative (NKI) addresses consumers, industry and municipalities as well as social and cultural establishments. The Initiative supports programmes and provides backing for clusters of comparable projects and individual specific projects.

In the domain of the BMU, the FFU and IFOK supports in two exemplary environmental policy areas relevant for the Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) the development or refinement of strategies by giving professional expertise and the moderation of the process.

This collaboration will exchange knowledge about as well as conduct joint research on changes in governance processes of renewable energy after the coming into effect of the renewable energy law and the CDM.

The German-Indian Sustainability and Climate Change Dialogue brings together decision-makers, scholars and future environmental leaders from Germany and India. They address climate protection and environmental governance and discuss the challenges and chances for bilateral environmental cooperation between both countries.

Russia is now the third-largest polutation emitter of greenhouse gases. There is, however, a number of barriers that make  behavioral changes towards improved energy efficiency difficult compared with other OECD countries.

This paper presents a framework for multilevel governance, showing that advancing governance of climate change across all levels of government and relevant stakeholders is crucial to avoid policy gaps between local action plans and national policy frameworks (vertical integration) and to encourage cross-scale learning between relevant departments or institutions in local and regional governments (horizontal dimension).

The project aims at strengthening the development towards a sustainable, competitive and territorially integrated Baltic Sea Region in the field of sustainable use of bio-energy.

The aim of the Peer Challenger Report is to review the actual implementation of Germany’s sustainability goals and to improve the governance approaches of public and private actors regarding sustainable development.

With the EU Commission’s recommendation to all member countries to implement biomass action plans and with the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC, biomass is expected to contribute considerably to the goal of 20% share of renewable energy sources (RES) in energy supply in Europe by 2020.

The aim of the project is to review, within the operational scope of the Environmental Ministry, how the agreement is implemented and to identify chances and obstacles of the implementation in cooperation with the responsible procurement agencies.

Advanced undergraduate and graduate level students from a variety of disciplines (political science, public administration, urban studies, business administration) will be recruited to participate in the transatlantic exchanges.

In the project a Sustainability Atlas will be developed, in which a national and international comparative overview is given on selected governmental and business strategies of sustainable development.

The initiative intends to implement a nationwide alliance for work and environment in the two federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg. The aims are: Reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions and the creation and security of jobs, particularly in the construction industry and the crafts.

The European project “Schools at university for Climate & Energy (SAUCE)” will offer a series of one-week on-campus education programmes for pupils ages 10-13 on the core topics of energy and climate change.

The Fulbright New Century Scholars Program provides a platform for a group of outstanding scholars to focus on a single issue of concern to people, institutions and governments worldwide.

On behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation the Environmental Policy Research Centre examined options for the implementation of a sustainability impact assessment within the German legislative process.

The research project is based on the assumption that there are a number of barriers that prohibit or impede consumers to efficiently use energy. These barriers have not been thoroughly discussed and studied.

As earlier industrial revolutions that lead to economic and social changes of similar scale, this transformation needs to be shaped politically.

In the context of the sustainable development concept and its emphasis on the balanced integration of economic, social, and environmental objectives, it is the aim of the project to investigate to what extent and how conflicts and trade-offs between economic, social, and environmental policies are solved by policy dismantling.

By appointment of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the consortium Adelphi Consult – FFU Berlin supports the intentions of the German Federal Government to found an International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The project starts from the observation that in the European Union, a harmonized approach to environmental standards is still missing in a number of policy areas.

Experiences with existing (more classical) instruments of industrial policies were assessed, and possible strategies of applying these to environmental policies were analysed.

Commissioned by the Federal Environment Agency , this project aimed to continue the conceptual work concerning ecological industrial policies, initialised by the research programme Environment – Innovation – Employment.

During a two-week excursion 15 students of the Freie Universität Berlin vistited Kenya in September 2007. The excursion was a cooperation between the FFU and the Moi University in Eldoret/ Kenya.

The project aims at studying the links between environmental policies and the competitiveness of companies and industries.

The German Environment Ministry and the Federal Environment Agency tasked 31 project partners, under the direction of the Wuppertal Institute, with the research project "Material Efficiency and Resource Conservation" (MaRess).

With this debate it is not only intended to enhance the research on Global Change. Results shall also be suitable to be introduced into the political process.

Due to the consideration on how existing Polish instruments for implementing EU strategies should be expanded, there has now also developed a debate concerning the system of green and energy taxation.

The German-Indian Sustainability and Climate Change Dialogue brings together decision-makers, scholars and future environmental leaders from Germany and India.

The Marie Curie Training Course on the Human Dimension of Global Environmental Change aims to train and educate advanced doctoral students and young researchers about the theoretical developments and empirical and practical implications from the emerging field of earth system governance.

In the project about environment, innovation and employment in the European context, a survey of important European policies that have the potential to contribute to a European ecological industrial policy was presented.

One important analytical tool among different Life-Cycle Approaches is Life Cycle Assessment as described and standardised by ISO.

The effects of environmental tax reforms on economic growth, economic competitiveness, employment, environmental quality and quality of life are at the heart of this programme.

Together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the FFU organised a workshop, where challenges and opportunities of ecological industrial politics were analysed and thus fields of action and strategies developed.

The project aims to analyse how stakeholders deal with the problem, and which kinds of barriers and channels do exist when behavior modification is suggested.

With this debate it was not only intended to enhance the research on Global Change. Results were introduced into the political process.

The EVIA project has investigated the use of the IA process. The target of Impact Assessment (IA) is to support the policy-making process by providing information, inter-ministerial consultations and to promote early stakeholder discussions and to encourage more interdisciplinary cooperation.

The project identified the most important instruments to promote small combined heat and power (CHP) plants. It aimed at contributing to the target of establishing a capacity of 50 MW of small scale CHP in Hanover.

There is a rapidly growing body of literature analysing and discussing different EPI approaches and measures.

Celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety gave reason to renew the answers to questions of German environmental politics on federal level.

The „Initiative for climate protection and employment in Berlin and Brandenburg“ is based on a collective action of the DGB of the area Berlin-Brandenburg and the association “energy & work”.

In an international comparison of the support for wind energy technologies, existing case studies and international comparative analyses were evaluated and own investigations added.

The project is expected to produce new and comprehensive insights regarding the question, which possibilities for successful national policy-making are left, which capacities are needed and what conditions apply for their successful utilisation.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the role that the states should play in expanding renewable energy use in Germany.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl the Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) in cooperation with the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), the Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) at the Freie Universität Berlin and the European East-West Academy for Culture and the Media (EOWA) planned to launch a series of events themed “Chernobyl +20” .

In time for the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and for the first time at the Free University of Berlin and in Germany, a thematically focused school university on climate and energy took place from 20^th March to 24^th March 2006.

Political and hydrological boundaries often fall apart. In this case, the establishment of cross-border institutions of water economists often is touted for integrated water resources management.

The Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management ("Life Ministry") appointed an interdisciplinary group of independent experts to evaluate implementation activities under the Austrian Sustainability Strategy.

RegEnergy developed innovative policy measures for a sustainable accommodation of heat energy on the communal and regional level. The project component 3 aimed to establish an interregional exchange of experiences and transfer of knowledge concerning these policy measures.

REALISE FORUM (Renewable Energy and Liberalisation in Selected Electricity markets–Forum) attempted to establish a basis for coherence for national renewables policies in the view of a possible harmonisation or coordination of financing mechanisms and support scheme for RES-E.

The Volkswagen Foundation is funding a group of scholars to handle their research on energy policy and security problems in the Caspian Region, and a series of five workshops, which will take place in Germany and Azerbaijan.

This project aimed to report and revise the existing sustainability indicator for bio diversity, considering the next report of progress by the federal government on the occasion of the National Strategy of Sustainability 2006.

The conference brought about a stocktaking of both the institutional basis of policy integration on the different levels of policy making as well as an improvement of the knowledge basis for a furthering of integration.

On June 17-18, 2004, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and the Environmental Policy Research Centre organized an international workshop on the topic of “The Environmental Dimension of Impact Assessment”.

The I.Q.Tools project developed an internet-based software designed to support the process of Impact Assessment within the European Commission.

The GTZ-pilot project "Environmental Policy and the Promotion of Strategy Processes for Sustainable Development" (Rioplus) aimed at delivering policy advice regarding the development and implementation of sustainable development strategies.

During the conference the effects of an innovative energy policy on politics of economy and employment were discussed.

The Environmental Policy Research Center (Forschungsstelle für Umweltpolitik, FFU) and its Czech cooperation partner Ecoconsulting Prague organised a series of workshops with German experts on the experience gained in Germany during the preparation and implementation phase of the ecological tax reform and on the experience with its current handling.

The 2003 Berlin Conference aimed at bringing together new and innovative research in this field — in particular with an empirical emphasis — that indicated possible pathways for the successful governance of industrial transformation processes.

The project examined cases of pioneering policies of nation states in the field of climate protection.

The overall objective of this international research project was to build research capacity and confidence among young researchers from developing countries to undertake applied policy research and analysis on harnessing the information society to achieve national sustainable development priorities.

The project had set itself the goal to find out whether and, if so, at what level of regulations do environmental policies converge in developed countries and have an impact especially on international institutions and international trade for a possible convergence in environmental policy.

The 2004 symposium was intended to foster the mutual exchange of information on European and Japanese efforts in recording significant environmental pollution sectors as well as the state of the environment.

Case studies on micro cogeneration, carbon capture and storage, consumer feedback, network regulation, emissions trading and other electricity innovations provide insights into innovation dynamics in the electricity system and were analyzed to derive strategic implications for policies shaping the innovation process.

The proposed research project aimed at developing a contribution for an implementable consideration of the requirements of sustainable development in new policy initiatives of the different branches of administration.

The project started from the observation that while over the past decades the study of international environmental institutions had tremendously advanced the general understanding of international cooperation, the roles and influences of a particular type of organizations that typically emerge as by-products of international environmental cooperation have largely remained unstudied.

The aim of this research and development project has been the development of a species-specific indicator for the Federal Government sustainability strategy.

In this study, the client was provided with a document which names the most important conditions for the success of instruments in promoting renewable energy.

As part of the German-Ukrainian cooperation, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety has initiated, identified and developed a consultation processes in the course of operational projects in the non-nuclear field.

Target of the conference was the future of energy policy without nuclear power. Chances and challenges of climate protection policy, the modernization of energy supply in Germany and the structural changes were discussed.

The Energy Foundation Schleswig-Holstein and the REFORM Group (an informal and international research group, which deals with questions of energy policy and regulation since 1992) have implemented a series of colloquiums with the title "Energy efficiency in Liberalised Energy Markets".

The ambition of the joint project was to add on a broader comparative Northern European dimension to already existing Nordic and Continental research on regulatory strategies to promote green electricity.

The interdisciplinary project aimed to identify and analyse the determinants of lead-markets for both environmental friendly as well as economically and socially sustainable products and processes.

The project researches presuppositioned of success for renewable energies in the European electricity market.

As part of the German-Ukrainian cooperation, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety has initiated, identified and developed a consultation processes in the course of operational projects in the non-nuclear field.

As a joint project of the University of Halle and the FFU two surveys were prepared, conducted and analysed in Germany.

The main aim of the project was to identify the approaches for the improvement of transfer of the results for the social science research environment, and the derivation of corresponding recommendations.

The investigation showed that certain institutional or instrumental innovations of individual countries systematically spread as national state of action since the establishment of environmental policies, in other words were adopted by other countries.

The Climate Technology Initiative (CTI) has been set up in 1995 by principal member states of the OECD/IEA and European Commission in order “to promote the objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by fostering international co-operation for accelerated development and diffusion of climate-friendly technologies and practices for all activities and greenhouse gases”.

The conference was attended by the project partners, external field research partners, other scientists, representatives of international organisations, non-governmental organisations and governmental officials from PAC.

The project aimed at identifying the influence of the users behaviour on the consumption of gas.

The organization of a constructive dialogue between science and society actors was the focus of the project. For this purpose, a network of scientific knowledge, statistical methods and social science approaches has been forged.

The project had the goal to understand the interaction and dependencies in the energy policies of Denmark and Germany.

In this follow-up project and starting from this dematerialization hypothesis, for the first time, comparative case studies analyse in detail the driving forces industrial restructuring of different industries and countries in Europe where such a decline has been observed at least temporarily.

The project identified approaches for an environement-friendly structural change process in advanced industrialized countries. Its main focus was on the most important economy branches in selected industrialized countries.

Overall project objective

The overall objective of ENABLE is to develop a more dynamic understanding of societal responses to emerging sustainable technologies and to explore how policy packages could be designed in response. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and led by the research centre CICERO. In addition to Norwegian research institutes and other market actors, two EU universities are involved: the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby and the Free University of Berlin - Environmental Policy Research Centre. 

Project content and approach

Together with the Norwegian partners, the FFU is responsible for working on a case study in the field of the offshore wind industry. The approach comprises several working steps:analysis of the initial conditions for the development of offshore wind projects, literature review on acceptance factors, analysis of stakeholders, policy and governance, case study research with expert interviews, stakeholder surveys as well as conclusions and recommendations to policy makers.

Research focus of the FFU 

The focus of the research to be conducted by the Environmental Policy Research Centre within ENABLE is on the social and local acceptance of planned or realised offshore wind farm projects. The most important subjects of acceptance are local coastal residents, representatives of coastal tourist communities, fishing associations and environmental organisations.