Project management and team (in Oldenburg):
Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner (Project coordination), Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer, Prof. Anthony Patt, PhD, Dr. Volker Barth

Project partners:
Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Duration:
2007-2010

Sponsor:
BMBF

Short description:
Well-documented results from behavioural economics show, that individuals' decisions systematically deviate from what the rational actor ("homo oeconomicus") of standard economic theory would do. Examples are time preferences (i.e. the valuation of future earnings and costs), or the common overconfidence in one's capabilities. The ALICE project aims to investigate whether these deviations from the homo oeconomicus are also to be observed among company decisions, in particular when it comes to long-term investments in the electricity sector. This will not only have an impact on decision theory but also influence strategies to protect the global climate.

Publications:
See the project homepage.

Short description:

The river-, mountain- and coast-region of Tanzania and South Africa are subject to permanent changes due to climate change with severe consequences for the whole ecosystem and land use. New options for action and strategies occur not only for the inhabitants of these regions but also for the social and political institutions. The project 'Clim-A-Net' examines these processes and follows the objective to advance the sustainable development of river basins, coastal zones and its water management systems and to connect scientists and students of natural and social science.

With 'Clim-A-Net', the University Oldenburg could win as one of two universities the 'Klimanetze-Ausschreibung' of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which supports the project with 1,000,000€. The funding enables scholarship fundings for PhD-students and master students of all three partner universities, the exchange of postdocs and professors as well as the organisation of summer schools and workshops.

Project management:

• Prof. Dr. Michael Kleyer, Landscape Ecology
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner, Ecological Economics

Project partner:

Project duration:
2010-2014

Funding:
DAAD

Publications:

• www.climanet.uni-oldenburg.de/

Project management and team (in Oldenburg):

• Prof. Dr. Tom Dedeurwaerdere (Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Leitung des Subnetzwerks)
• Prof. Dr. Eric Brousseau (Université de Paris X)
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner

Project partners:
8 European Research institutes

Duration:
2003-2004

Funding
European Commission Europäische Kommission (5th research framework)

Short description:
In this European research project, collective learning processes within the scope of current developments in international biodiversity politics are being examined. In doing so, especially the regulations about the access and a fair benefit sharing in the usage of genetic resources included in the biodiversity convention were paramount.

Publications:

• Siebenhüner, B./Dedeurwaerdere, T./Brousseau, E. (Hrsg.) (2005): Biodiversity Conservation, Access and Benefit Sharing and Traditional Knowledge, Special Issue of Ecological Economics Vol. 53.
• Siebenhüner, B./Suplie, J. (2005): Implementing the Access and Benefit Sharing Provisions of the CBD: A Case for Institutional Learning. In: Ecological Economics Vol. 53, S. 507- 522.

See the book: Reflexive Governance for Public Goods

Short description:

The cooperation network Developing Sustainability pursues the goal to build up master programs with common curricula following the example of Oldenburg, to initiate research projects and to realise a comprehensive exchange of students and lecturers. Content-related core issues are Renewable Energies, Operational Sustainability Management inclusive IT as well as Environmental Science. With this network, the University Oldenburg strengthens its international profile in the field of development cooperation and falls back on longstanding experience in research and teaching concerning sustainability-related topics.

Project management:

• Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner

Project partners:

Project duration:
2009-2013

Funding:
DAAD - German Academic Excange Service

Publications:

• devsus.uni-oldenburg.de/

Short description:

The interdisciplinary research group EGON investigated the development of organically bred fruit varieties in commons-based initiatives. This breeding approach is characterized by the utilization of the genetic diversity of heirloom and underutilized varieties in breeding, as well as the practical participation of a community of farmers and breeders. In EGON, studies were conducted from different perspectives to evaluate this breeding approach ecologically, economically, and socially.

Project management and team (in Oldenburg):

• Hendrik Wolter
• Nicholas Howard
• Prof. Dr. Dirk Albach
• Prof. Dr. Stefanie Sievers-Glotzbach
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner

Project partners:

The state government of Lower Saxony promoted the three-year project from the “Niedersächsisches Vorab der Volkswagenstiftung”. The research group was one out of five projects which were promoted by the state government to strengthen sustainable agricultural production from 2017 onwards.

Publications:

• Wolter, H.; Sievers-Glotzbach, S. (2019): Bridging traditional and new commons: The case of fruit breeding. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), S. 303–328. DOI: doi.org/10.18352/ijc.869
• Verma S., Evans K., Guan Y., Luby J.J., Rosyara U.R., Howard N.P., Bassil N., Bink M.C.A.M., van de Weg E., Peace C.P. (2019): Two large-effect QTLs, Ma and Ma3, determine genetic potential for acidity in apple fruit: breeding insights from a multi-family study. Tree Genetics & Genomes. Apr 15:18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-019-1324-y
• Howard N.P., Tillman J., Vanderzande S., Luby J.J. (2019): Genetics of zonal leaf chlorosis and genetic linkage to a major gene regulating skin anthocyanin production (MdMYB1) in the apple (Malus × domestica) cultivar Honeycrisp. PLoS ONE. Jan 28;14(1): e0210611. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210611
• Howard N.P., van de Weg E., Tillman J., Tong C.B., Silverstein K.A., Luby J.J. (2018): Two QTL characterized for soft scald and soggy breakdown in apple (Malus × domestica) through pedigree-based analysis of a large population of interconnected families. Tree Genetics & Genomes. Feb 1;14(1):2.
• Sievers-Glotzbach, S.; Wolter, H. (2018): Bringing Commons elements into fruit breeding. In: Ecofruit. 18th International Conference on Organic-Fruit Growing: Proceedings, 19-21 Februar 2018, Hohenheim, Deutschland. S. 19-28. Fördergemeinschaft Ökologischer Obstbau e.V. (FÖKO). Download.
• Howard, N. P.; Albach, D. C.; Luby, J. J. (2018): The identification of apple pedigree information on a large diverse set of apple germplasm and its application in apple breeding using new genetic tools. In: Ecofruit. 18th International Conference on Organic-Fruit Growing: Proceedings, 19-21 Februar 2018, Hohenheim, Deutschland. S. 88-91. Fördergemeinschaft Ökologischer Obstbau e.V. (FÖKO). Download.
• Wolter, H.; Howard, N. P.; Ristel, M.; Sievers-Glotzbach, S.; Albach, D.C.; Sattler, I.; Siebenhüner, B. (2018): Research Project EGON: Development of organically bred fruit varieties in commons-based initiatives. In: Ecofruit. 18th International Conference on Organic-Fruit Growing: Proceedings, 19-21 Februar 2018, Hohenheim, Deutschland. S. 92-95. Fördergemeinschaft Ökologischer Obstbau e.V. (FÖKO). Download.

Other:

• Poster show Ecofruit 2018 Download.
• Centos project poster EGON Download.

Short description:
The ErKlim-Project pursues three objectives:

(1.) The analysis of the causes for success or failure of previous measures for the distribution of climate protection and adaptation, especially in private households as well as the analysis of the synergies and conflicts of climate protection and adaptation, particularly in the action fields of construction/living and mobility.

(2). The deduction of improved strategies for the integrated promotion of climate protection and adaptation with particular consideration of environmental psychological findings of behavioural changing communication- and participation-forms.

(3.) The application of the gained knowledge in concrete measures for the promotion of climate protection and climate adaptation.

For the achievement of these objectives, already existing networks for climate protection and adaptation in the fields of action construction/living and mobility are being developed and several professionally moderated workshops with experts from society, administration, economy and research are conducted. The project performance is a practical guide (the so-called Kyoto-navigator) for the fields of action construction/living and mobility. It contains the integrated knowledge of the expert workshops and the published literature about effective strategies for the promotion of climate protection and adaptation in construction/living and mobility, as much as sustainable combinations of measures within the meaning of the use of synergies and the prevention of conflicts between climate protection, climate adaptation and other ecological, economic and social target areas as well as between the fields of action construction/living and mobility.

Project management and project team (in Oldenburg):

• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner (Overall project management)
• Dr. Torsten Grothmann

Project partner:

• Universität Kassel
• Universität Marburg
• e-fect

Project duration:
2006-2008

Funding:

• BMBF
• EWE Stiftung

Publications

• http://www.erklim.uni-oldenburg.de/ 

Short description:
The research project 'Future field tenant flow models' is a subproject of the joint project "BuergEn: Perspectives of citizen participation in the energy transition under consideration of distribution issues" funded by the BMBF. In the project, the chair Ecological Economics works of the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg works together with the innova eG and the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW).

The objective of the project is to analyse and evaluate transformation potentials, success factors and challenges for the implementation of tenant flow models carried by citizens. The analysis of organisational forms and business models focusses on Germany is on the macro-, meso- and micro-level. Furthermore, development potentials by blockchain technology are examined. The results are integrated into a potential study, a guideline addressed at citizen energy actors and in a software tool to calculate the economic efficiency of tenant flow projects. Therefore, the project gives a research-based and practice-oriented contribution to the implementation of a decentral citizen energy transition.

Research Approach:

The research project is structured in three different perspectives. Besides a (quantitative) inventory, systematisation and comparative consideration of tenant flow projects in Germany (macro-level), a comparative (qualitative) analysis of the cooperative as adequate company form for tenant flow is conducted (meso-level) as well as a transdisciplinary case study of a cooperative tenant flow project, which is accompanied by action research (micro-level). On top of that, the perspectives of the blockchain technology for tenant flow models and its technical execution are analysed in detail (by the IÖW).

In doing so, it is imperative to consider the various technical options, which are applied (PV, cogeneration unit, battery storage) and their combination as well as the different constellations of actors and opportunities for cooperation that are available for citizen energy companies. The research over three levels should not only generate knowledge for improved evaluation and assessment of citizen energy-oriented tenant flow projects but also produce valuable statements for better planning and realisation of such projects.

Project duration:
06/2017 - 12/2017

Research partner:

• Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (UOL): Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner, Dr. Christian Lautermann
• innova eG: Dr. Burghard Flieger
• Institute for Ecological Economy Resarch (IÖW): Dr. Astrid Aretz, Dr. Swantje Gährs

Contact:

• Hendrik Wolter, M.A.
  Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
  Mail:
  Tel.: 0441 / 798-2983
  Raum: A5 0-035
   
• Dr. Christian Lautermann
  Projektkoordinator
  Mail:
  Tel.: 0441 / 798-4843
  Raum: A5 2-267

Short description:

Global climate change illsutrates the necessity of a social-ecological transformation of society. To initiate and create the essential changes in production and consumption patters and because of limited governmental regulation and intervention opportunities, comprehensive learning procresses for a variety of social actors are needed. In the research project 'Social learning and sustainability', socially and sustainably relevant learning processes in the three crentral areas of need for climate change (mobility, construction and living, information and communication) are reflected upon on three levels:

• Organisational level: Investigation of intraorganisational learning processes for a sustainable development in companies.
• Societal level: Investigation of interorganisational connections and the institutionalisation of sustainability in the areas of needs, from which as social perspective can be developed.
• Process level: Investigation and practical testig of particip

Prozessebene: Untersuchung und praktische Erprobung partizipativer Lernprozesse (insbesondere Produktentwicklungsprozesse) zur Entstehung nachhaltiger Innovationen.

Der Zusammenhang zwischen intra- und interorganisationalen Lernprozessen sowie die Reflexion der Bedeutung partizipativer Produktentwicklungsverfahren für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung wird durch eine Bezugnahme auf unterschiedliche ökonomische und sozialwissenschaftliche Organisations- und Institutionentheorien hergestellt.

Project management and project team:

• Bernd Siebenhüner
• Esther Hoffmann
• Thomas Beschorner
• Volker Barth
• Marlen Arnold
• Torsten Behrens
• Karin Vogelpohl

Project partner:
Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) gGmbH, Berlin

Project Duration:
2002-2007

Finanzierung:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Publications:

• Siebenhüner, B. et al.: Organisationales Lernen und Nachhaltigkeit. Marburg: Metropolis, 2006.
• Beschorner, T. et al.: Institutionalisierung von Nachhaltigkeit. Marburg: Metropolis, 2005.
• Hoffmann, E. et al.: Gesellschaftliches Lernen und Nachhaltigkeit. Marburg: Metropolis, 2004.

See the project homepage.

Short description:

The MANUS project examined the role of international bureaucracies in global governance-processes. Within a theoretical frame, which was structures on sociological institutionalism, it researched in the influence of international bureaucracies in global environmental politics, how volatility in their influence could be explained and they could 'learn' to improve their effectiveness. To analyse these questions, the project team worked out an analysis framework of hypotheses and variables with more than 120 indicators. The framework was applied to nine case studies, in which the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) were assessed. Furthermore, the secretariats of multilateral environmental conventions were evaluated, as they have barely been researched before. Concretely, the secretariats of the climate convention, the biodiversity convention, the desertification convention and of the international treaties on the protection of the ozone layer were investigated. Further case studies examined the UN environmental program and the Globale Umweltfazilität (GEF). These case studies were complemented by an online expert survey in Germany, India, Mexico and the United States.

Project management and project team (in Oldenburg):

• Prof. Dr. Frank Biermann (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner

Project partners:

• Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (PIK)
• Freie Universität Berlin, Forschungsstelle für Umweltpolitik (FFU)

Project Duration:
2002-2005

Funding:
Volkswagen Foundation

Publications:

• Biermann, F./Siebenhüner, B. (Hrsg.) (2009): Managers of Global Change: The Influence of International Environmental Bureaucracies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Biermann, F./Siebenhüner, B./Schreyögg, A. (Hrsg.) (2009): International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance. Oxford: Routledge.
• Siebenhüner, B. (2008): Learning in International Organisations in Global Environmental Governance. In: Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 8(4).
• Siebenhüner, B. (2007): Administrator of Global Biodiversity: The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. In: Biodiversity and Conservation, Vol. 16, S. 259-274.

See the book: Managers of Global Change

Project management and team (in Oldenburg):
Dr. Ralph Baumheier, Metropolregion Bremen-Oldenburg im Nordwesten e.V. (Project coordinator)
Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner, Maik Winges, Kevin Grecksch

Project partners:
Metropolregion Bremen-Oldenburg im Nordwesten e.V.
SCB - Sustainability Center Bremen
Universität Bremen - artec Forschungszentrum Nachhaltigkeit
Universität Oldenburg - Centos Oldenburg Center for Sustainability Economics and Management
Hochschule Bremen
Bioconsult Schuchardt & Scholle GbR

Duration:
2009-2014

Sponsor:
BMBF (Federal Ministry for Education and Research)

Short description:

With this practice-oriented research project, the Northwest German region is among the selected model regions in Germany that through the support of Creating Climate Change-Ready Regions (KLIMZUG) has the opportunity to develop improvements in their ability to deal with climate change in selected fields, and to integrate them into regional planning and development processes.
In Northwest 2050 there are two different characters of road mapping processes for climate adaptation in the Northwest region.

1. It is necessary to define the vulnerability of economic sectors for the food industry, the energy production and distribution, and the port management and logistics, evaluate chances for innovation and implement concrete measures. This activity e.g. is touching resilient food plants, environmentally friendly cooling and air-conditioning technologies as well as the fitness of the electricity grid. These so-called sector-oriented roadmaps are focusing on innovation paths within the period of Northwest 2050 until spring 2014.
2. All partners will develop a long-term roadmap of change for climate adaptation strategies for the whole Metropolitan Region Bremen-Oldenburg Northwest with the time frame of 2050. The roadmap of change is based on the experiences and results of short-term processes in specific innovation paths to define needs for structural changes until 2050.

The generalisability and the transferability of the approach should be assured through close cooperation with the parallel projects in the support programme, as well as with the Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER) at the University of Maryland. Parallels in the focus sectors of logistics/port management, the food manufacturing industry and the energy sector, together with the circumstances of the natural surroundings make possible this transatlantic comparison of the two coastal regions. They also serve to inspire the shaping of future-readiness about climate change in both regions.
Not only the ability to adapt to climate change but also the ability of the region to learn and to compete internationally will improve greatly. Together with partners from the respective economic clusters, concrete paths of innovations will be developed and new ground is broken. The paths target not only technical innovations at different stages of development (e.g. solar cooling systems, low exergy solutions, resilient logistics systems, adapted cultivation und processing strategies in the food industry) but also organisational and institutional innovations (e.g. management of regional climate impacts, adaptive governance, further development of mechanisms and structures of the metropolitan region in terms of accompanying the implementation of the roadmap of change, land use management, risk communication, capacity building).

Publications:
www.nordwest2050.de

Project management and team (in Oldenburg):
Dr. Marlen Arnold (TU München, Project coordinator)
Dr. Volker Barth (head of subproject), Daniel Meyerholt

Project partners:
Technical University Munich
University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Technical University Darmstadt

Duration:
2009-2010

Sponsor:
BMBF (Federal Minstry for Education and Research)

Short description:

The project employs citizens' knowledge of their needs and solutions to generate and develop energy-efficient strategies and supply in the fields of action "mobility", "housing" and "mobility & housing integrated", to ease the application of new ideas and to foster their acceptance.
To increase energy efficiency in the fields of mobility and housing and at their interfaces, ideas shall be generated, developed, assessed and implemented in cooperation with citizens, the city of Munich, and our partner companies. Energy flows and greenhouse gas emissions of the Ideas and concepts will be assessed. We use a variety of methods including idea competition, web communities, discussion boards and innovation workshops. We check-in close cooperation with our partners and the city of Munich - whether and when the ideas might be competitive and how they could be implemented.

Publications:
Idea competition www.save-our-energy.de (starting 01.09.2009)

Short description:

In the context of exploring sustainable consumption the network project considers the early stages of the process and examines the development of sustainable products and services using the integration of users in the particular innovation process.
The basic idea of the research project implies that through user integration sustainable innovation and thereby sustainable consumption can be enabled, improved and boosted. User integration means the systematic integration of the user from the first idea through to market diffusion. The expected advantages of this dialogic user integration are a higher market acceptance by early integrating the user into practical use aspects and user needs, reduced failure risks, quicker diffusion and an early assessment of social-ecological effects of sustainable consumption.
The research concept can be described on a horizontal and a vertical level. On the horizontal level, the focus is on user integration in three selected products and services. Three subprojects examine (1) Passive Houses, (2) BioPlastics for Food Packaging and (3) "Mobile" Mobility. The vertical level contains cross-section topics related to all sustainable innovation processes: (5) Motivation, (6) Gender and Diversity, (7) Institutional Framework Conditions and (8) Evaluation of the Effects.
Subproject 7, lead by a team from the University of Oldenburg, examines the legal and structural framework conditions which support or hinder the institutionalisation of user integration in sustainable innovation processes. A theoretical multi-level model and a qualitative empirical study shall determine factors for successful institutionalisation of user integration at the company level.

Project management and team (in Oldenburg):

• Prof. Dr. Frank-Martin Belz (Overall project),
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner (Subproject Oldenburg), David Sichert

Project partners:

• Technical University Munich
• University Hannover

Duration:
2008-2011

Funding:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Publications:

• Nachhaltigkeitsinnovation durch Nutzerintegration

Short description:

The European research project analyses innovative institutional mechanism, with which the market failure and the failure of government regulatory policy should be encountered. They content increasingly reflexive elements, in which the knowledge of the involved actors, in particular, should be used and introduced. The sub-project "Global Public Services and Common Goods" examined the role of knowledge, knowledge generation and learning in governance processes for the provision of global public goods like biodiversity, climate protection, etc.

Project management and project team (in Oldenburg):

• Prof. Dr. Tom Dedeurwaerdere (Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, head of subjetwork)
• Prof. Dr. Eric Brousseau (Université de Paris X)
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Siebenhüner, Elke Blachnik

Project partner:
28 European Research Institutions

Project duration:
2005-2010

Funding:
European Commission (6. Framework Programme)

Publications:

• http://refgov.cpdr.ucl.ac.be/