Chantal Ruppert-Winkel

Characteristics, emerging needs, and challenges of transdisciplinary sustainability science: experiences from the German Social-Ecological Research Program

Transdisciplinary sustainability science (TSS) is a prominent way of scientifically contributing to the solution of sustainability problems. Little is known, however, about the practice of scientists in TSS, especially those early in their career. Our objectives were to identify these practices and to outline the needs and challenges for early career scientists in TSS. Three major challenges were identified: (1) TSS demands openness to a plurality of research designs, theories, and methods, while also requiring shared, explicit, and recursive use of TSS characteristics; (2) researchers in TSS teams must make decisions about trade-offs between achievements of societal and scientific impact, acknowledging that focusing on the time-consuming former aspect is difficult to integrate into a scientific career path; and (3) although generalist researchers are increasingly becoming involved in such TSS research projects, supporting the integration of social, natural, and engineering sciences, specialized knowledge is also required.

Hidden in the woods? Meaning, determining, and practicing of ‘common welfare’ in the case of the German public forests

This article addresses the German debate on the issue of the common welfare designation of public forests. In the first part, drawing on two case studies, the political discourse on the issue is introduced. Two major competing ‘story lines’ can be made out that are both based on a long tradition of controversially discussed concepts of regulatory forest policy. While they both emphasise that common welfare services in forestry run counter to profit orientation, they fundamentally differ with regard to the consequences for forest policy, e.g., considering the degree of state intervention. Afterwards, an overview on the scientific debate on common welfare in the German context is given, and different concepts of common welfare determination are distinguished. Existing approaches of common welfare determination in German forest policy are related to these concepts and discussed. It is argued that the common welfare designation of the public forest is only insufficiently implemented by the actual governance arrangements. Based on this consideration, eventually, the implementation of a procedural concept of common welfare operationalisation in Germany’s public forests at the local level is proposed. While such a concept will not solve all complex problems related to the determination of common welfare in public forestry, it would notably contribute to a more operational definition of common welfare in public forestry and a more informed public debate on the issue.

Mit Good Regional Governance zur nachhaltigen Energiewende? Das Beispiel des Kreises Steinfurt in Deutschland

Eine Vielzahl von Kommunen und Regionen strebt sowohl in Deutschland als auch international das Ziel einer Vollversorgung mit erneuerbaren Energien an (Institut dezentrale Energietechnologien 2013; REN21 2013: 43). Mit diesen Bestrebungen geht ein langfristiger und komplexer Transformationsprozess einher (Verbong/Loorbach 2012). Unterschiedlichste Themenfelder – wie technische Energieversorgungskonzepte, Landnutzungsveranderungen, Burgerpartizipation, veranderte Anspruche an Siedlungs- und Mobilitatsstrukturen sowie Masnahmen zur Energieeffizienzsteigerung und Lebensstilveranderungen – sind dabei ganzheitlich zu betrachten (Ruppert-Winkel et al. 2013; Tischer et al. 2006).