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Photo: Trent Haaland on Unsplash

A person embraces a tree.

The socio-ecological crisis is having an increasingly negative impact on our everyday lives. Nevertheless, so far there is little sign of the urgently needed societal change towards sustainability. Why is that? How can this be changed? And what role does our relationship with nature play in this context? Martina Artmann, head of the Leibniz-Junior Research Group "Urban human-nature resonance for sustainability transformation" at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), explores these questions in an article. It has been published in the open access journal…

Photo: Marcus Fehse, aeronauten-berlin

Bird's eye view of the roofs of a residential area

There is a shortage of housing in many cities. New construction and thus redensification on the outskirts of the city could provide a remedy. But the different logics of action of landowners and other actors often stand in the way. In the SUBDENSE project, an interdisciplinary team, including Mathias Jehling from the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), is looking at this challenge of sustainable urban development. The project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and other international research agencies.

Source: IOER-Media/GeoSN

Map detail of Dresden with colourful buildings on a black background

The time has come! – On 6 March, the platform "Colouring Dresden" will be launched. It is part of a new citizen science project in which interested citizens of Dresden can actively participate. Thematically, it is about researching Dresden's stock of buildings. The project team will explain how those who are interested can get involved on 6 March, from 4 p.m. in the Central Library in the Kulturpalast Dresden.

Source: FLOOD.Bi/STRIMA II

map shows blue floodplains

Self-protection against floods is becoming increasingly important. This is particularly true for the protection of residential buildings. The information tool FLOOD.Bi can be used to determine and minimise the risk of flood damage to buildings. The Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) developed the tool together with the Saxon State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology (LfULG) in the EU project STRIMA II. From 2 to 5 March, a team from both institutions presented the online tool at the "HAUS", a construction fair in Dresden.

Photo: Jaewon Lee

Marc Wolfram speaking at a conference

The Director of the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Professor Dr Marc Wolfram, was re-elected for a second time as a board member of the International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) in December 2020.

Photo: Lawrence Makoona on Unsplash

Waving flags in white, purple and green at a climate strike by Friends of the Earth international.

Questions of justice in transdisciplinary and transformative research are the focus of a summer school hosted by the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in cooperation with the Leibniz Research Network "Knowledge for Sustainable Development". The event will take place on 28 and 29 June in Dresden.

Photo: Alexander Henke

Three people are standing at a table, two of them are wearing yellow T-shirts with the text "DresdenZero",

The City of Dresden is supposed to become climate-neutral by 2035. This is the central goal of the DresdenZero initiative, which citizens of the city have joined together to form. The Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) supports the initiative's request.

Photo: H. Hensel/IOER-Media

Detail of a map showing the region around Zittau.

How can Lusatia develop by the year 2050 - without coal mining and instead ecologically sustainable and livable for the local people? The exhibition "Raumbilder Lausitz 2050" (Spatial Imaginaries Lusatia 2050) is dedicated to this question. The Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) will be showing it from 3 February to 4 March in the Centre for Building Culture (ZfBK) Saxony in the Kulturpalast Dresden. The exhibition will be opened with a vernissage on 2 February at 7 p.m.

Photo: Heike Hensel/IOER-Media

 Baltic Sea coast, in the background off-shore wind turbines

In January, Josefine Gottschalk, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), received her second award for her Master's thesis on marine conservation. Following the 2022 Research Award of Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), she now received the Clara von Simson Award from TU Berlin. With this prize, the TU Berlin honours the best female graduates from the natural and technical sciences.

Photo: H. Hensel/IOER-Media

Brown hare sitting in green meadow with wild flowers

The dramatic loss of biodiversity threatens our basis of life. In the run-up to the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, a broad alliance of German scientific and non-governmental organisations has therefore issued the "Frankfurt Declaration" calling for an end to economic activity against nature. The IOER supports the demands and offers summarised in the position paper.

The Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development is jointly funded by the federal government and the federal states.

FS Sachsen

This measure is co-financed by tax funds on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.