In June 2020, the meinGrün project launched the web app of the same name. Now, users in Dresden and Heidelberg are asked to take part in a final survey and thus provide information for possible future development. On 28 June, the project team will also present the results of its research and the meinGrün Web Portal at the Dresden Land Use Symposium (Dresdner Flächennutzungssymposium/DFNS).

On 9 June, Anne Seiwert successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Implementation of Biodiversity Policy in Urban Contexts: Between Structural-Institutional Framework Conditions and Discursive Knowledge Orders" at the Technische Universität Dresden. The dissertation was written complementary to the IOER project UrbanNBS, which dealt with municipal strategies for strengthening biodiversity in cities. Further information German.

An inaugural regional interim workshop (DNCi) took place on 9 June 2021 as part of the international Dresden Nexus Conference (DNC) event series. Jointly organised by United Nations University (UNU-FLORES), the Leibniz Institute for Ecological and Spatial Development (IOER), and the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) invited participants, DNC regularly focuses on the Resource Nexus, i.e. the integrated management of water, soil, waste, energy, and other environmental resources. The online workshop focused on questions of sustainable building and housing.

On 8 and 9 July 2021 the German Sustainability Science Summit 2021 will take place as an interactive virtual event. The IOER will present different aspects of its research work in three sessions. The summit continues the series of the German Future Earth Summits organised by the German Committee Future Earth (Deutsches Komitee für Nachhaltigkeitsforschung, DKN). Registration for the Summit is open from 18 to 28 June.

Settlement monitoring and the practical application of open geodata - these are the topics which the IOER will present at the "Week of the Environment" in June. Under the heading "This is how the future works!" the German Federal President and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, DBU) invite to the event. The 150 exhibitors will present their topics digitally. At the opening on 10 June by the German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, as well as John Kerry, the 1st United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, will also speak.

From autumn 2021, it will once again be possible to test living and working in Görlitz, the easternmost city in Germany, located directly at the Polish border. The project "Testing the City of the Future – A living and working experiment for a climate neutral city of Görlitz" focuses on a new aspect. The participants are to support Görlitz with their ideas and expertise on the path to more sustainability. To do this, they can try out the city as a place to live, work and live for three months.

In issue 18/2021 of 29 April, ZEITmagazin takes up a small section of the work of the IOER in the field of monitoring of settlement and open space development. In its "Deutschlandkarte", the magazine traces the development of the German motorway network. The IOER has been conducting research on land use in Germany for many years and offers the Monitor of Settlement and Open Space Development (IOER-Monitor) as an important tool with which interested parties can use the data free of charge. Further information in German.

Spatial visions for a future-oriented development of Lusatia - they will be created by July as part of the planning laboratory “Raumbilder Lausitz 2050” (Spatial Images Lusatia 2050 - Designing Sustainable Transformation). 24 national and international teams applied to take part, and four of them were selected. The planning laboratory has now officially started with a two-day kick-off event at the end of March

The COVID-19 pandemic will leave its mark on many historic city centres. Consequences for the urban space can already be assessed and solution strategies developed. Using the example of the Historic Towns Working Group, Erik Mann, a graduate of the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), has investigated in his Master's thesis what influence the Corona pandemic could have on the inner cities and their further development. The most important results are summarised in a policy paper. The work was supervised by Prof. Dr. Robert Knippschild from the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER).

What potentials as well as what challenges arise from the cooperation between Transition Town initiatives and municipal actors? What contribution do the initiatives make to sustainable urban transformation? The IOER has investigated these questions in the project "New partnerships in sustainable urban development? Potentials of Transition Town Initiatives" on behalf of the vhw - Bundesverband für Wohnen und Stadtentwicklung e. V. The final report with recommendations for action for both the initiatives and the municipal level has now been published. Further information is available in German.

A new cohort of the Dresden Leibniz Graduate School (DLGS) started at the beginning of March. The fellows of the DLGS 2021 will spend three years researching challenges of spatial sustainability transformations. DLGS 2021 focuses on "heat and drought in urban contexts". The application period for cohort number 12 starts in June.

In the EU project SPOT, the IOER is conducting research on new forms of cultural tourism in Lusatia, a region in the south of the federal state of Brandenburg. The research also includes investigations in the case study areas. In October 2020, a team from the IOER surveyed the population in the Lieberose/Oberspreewald district. Initial results are now available.

Since autumn 2017, an interdisciplinary team of researchers and practice partners has been investigating how urban districts and buildings can be better adapted to summer heat in the project "HeatResilientCity". The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is now funding the project for another two years. Phase II will focus on the practical implementation of adaptation measures. The project also focuses on the issue of health.