30 years of knowledge for sustainable development

For months now, young people have been striking for proper climate protection and a future without a climate in crisis under the motto #FridaysForFuture. On Friday, 20 September, when the Federal Government in Berlin is due to decide on the next steps in its climate policy, the youth will again take...

The PlastX research group detects thousands of chemicals in plastic products—three out of four products contain harmful substances. Plastic products are ubiquitous. Although considered indispensable in many areas of life thanks to their versality and practicality, are they really harmless? The...

It was foreseeable that vehicles that did not comply with climate targets or nitrogen oxide limits would one day no longer be saleable . Nevertheless, automobile manufacturers have been reluctant to develop sustainable vehicle concepts that are suitable for the transition. Their belated innovations,...

Almost a quarter of the world’s population lives in countries that face an extreme risk of drought. Among them, 17 countries are in a particularly criticalsituation. This is the conclusion presented in the water risk atlas this week by the US research centre World Resources Institute (WRI). Among...

Even if the technology has as yet only been tested in prototypes on test routes, autonomous driving will apparently be possible in the near future. How exactly do potential users envision such vehicles? And how high is the level of public acceptance? The Robocab study, performed by Fraunhofer IAO...

Droughts threaten millions of people worldwide. Climate change is likely to exacerbate famines and water shortages and people in sub-Saharan Africa in particular are affected by the risk of more frequent droughts. So, scientific instruments to assess the extent of these drought risks are becoming...

To solve complex social problems, the knowledge of many different scientific disciplines is required. Moreover, if scientific knowledge is to produce effective results for practice, research must also be open to knowledge beyond science. Here is where transdisciplinary research comes in.TD research...

On 9 May, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Müller founded the international waste alliance PREVENT together with over 30 organizations from business, politics, civil society and science as well as with the countries of Indonesia and Ghana. The alliance aims to promote...

In the summer semester of 2019 the research group PlastX organizes the lecture series “Living in the Plastic Age: Perspectives from the Humanities, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences” at the Goethe-University of Frankfurt. For the lecture series, internationally renowned scientists who look at the...

More and more waste is being discharged into the world’s oceans. They not only originate from shipping and fishing, but also find their way via rivers into the seas and oceans or are carried directly into the sea by the wind. Three-quarters of marine litter consists of plastic, thus plastic...