Transdisciplinary Socio-Environment Research

Entwicklung eines Prozessschemas zum Aufbau von Kapazitäten zum präventiven und innovativen Umgang mit Hitzegefährdung als Beitrag zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung mit Fokus auf kleine Kommunen. (Vorgängerprojekt: Lokale Kompetenzentwicklung zur Klimawandelanpassung in kleinen und mittleren Kommunen und Landkreisen (LoKlim))

Fünfgeld H
Email: hartmut.fuenfgeld@geographie.uni-freiburg.de

Baden-Württemberg. Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst

Australia and Germany are already experiencing serious climate change impacts. In Australia, recent disasters include devastating bushfires in 2019-20 and recurrent flooding in 2021-22. In Germany, recent dryness, drought periods and heat waves have harmed agriculture/forestry, while lethal extreme rainfall events in 2021 in the Ahrtal region destroyed whole communities. The IPCC documents the escalating climate change risks each country faces in coming decades, including the risks of cascading infrastructural breakdown and institutional overwhelm. As climate change adaptation is an urgent government imperative, this project provides a much-needed window into the ‘black box’ of institutional adaptation decision-making in two regions that share seemingly high adaptive capacity but slow adaptation action: Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and Victoria, Australia. The aim is to foster more effective and just public sector adaptation by analysing how and why officials are approaching adaptation the way they are. The research questions are: 1. In Baden-Württemberg and Victoria’s state governments, which groups are working on climate change adaptation and why? 2. What are their professional/disciplinary lenses and how do these shape the risks they prioritise, and the adaptation approaches they favour? How do they perceive cascading, compounding and catastrophic climate change risks? 3. How do work settings affect their perspectives and actions? What role do national differences play? 4. What does this suggest about ‘institutional barriers’ to effective and just adaptation and how these can be overcome? What positive ideas can be gleaned from diverse contexts?

Fünfgeld H
Email: hartmut.fuenfgeld@geographie.uni-freiburg.de

Deutschland. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

The MUTUAL project explores how municipalities can develop pathways to move beyond growth as an objective and institutionalized principle. We are conducting research in two municipalities—Grenoble in France and Freiburg in Germany—to investigate strategies for fostering growth autonomy and resilience in real-world settings.MUTUAL is a three-year research project funded by the German Research Foundation and based at the University of Freiburg's Institute of Environmental Social Sciences and Geography. The project is guided by three research questions: (1) What measures implemented by municipalities potentially decrease the importance of economic growth for local development, and how? (2) What institutional and cultural conditions support or hinder growth autonomy, and how are these conditions navigated, negotiated, and modified by different stakeholders? (3) How can spatial concepts – such as place, territory, and scale – aid in understanding post-growth transformations at the municipal scale? for more information please visit: mutual-project.com

Dr. Benedikt Schmid
Phone: ++49(0)761 203-3566
Email: benedikt.schmid@geographie.uni-freiburg.de