Knowledge for sustainable development

Solving complex sustainability problems requires the knowledge of many different scientific disciplines. But the experiential and everyday knowledge of societal actors also plays a crucial role. To achieve effective results for societal transformations, science must therefore open up to the...

The UN Biodiversity Council warns that pandemics will increase, should nature and biodiversity not be better protected. However, scientists from ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research are pointing out that the preservation of biodiversity cannot be guaranteed with blanket decrees. For...

The United Nations has declared “Valuing Water” to be the motto for World Water Day on March 22. But in order to appreciate water, it is necessary to understand that drinking water is a precious resource. So far, too little attention has been paid to groundwater as the world’s most important source...

From April 1, 2021, Flurina Schneider is going to be new scientific director and spokesperson of the executive board of ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research. She is taking over from Thomas Jahn, who co-founded the Institute for Social-Ecological Research in 1989. Simultaneously, Flurina...

The second half of March 2020 saw unprecedented changes in almost all areas of life as a result of measures taken to combat the Covid 19 pandemic in Germany. With the spring lockdown, water utilities also faced a new situation: water consumption changed, both in public and corporate facilities and...

ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research in Frankfurt am Main continues its event series “ISOE Lecture”. This year, an environmental humanities theme is the focus of the lecture, which for the first time cannot take place at the Goethe University Frankfurt due to the pandemic. Guest reader of...

ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research has launched a new blog. Under the URL isoe.blog, ISOE researchers will from now on regularly write about sustainability issues and about results from their research practice. The ISOE blog “Social Ecology” is an invitation for discussion and aims to...

The Rhine-Main region with the city of Frankfurt is known to be a prospering metropolitan region just like the French city of Lyon and its surrounding area. How can the two populous cities, which have been twinned since 1961 combine mobility and sustainability in a future-orientated way? This is the...

Social-ecological transformations are necessary for sustainable development. But how can society, science, politics and economy jointly initiate successful transformation processes? Scientists of ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research recently stated that a common perception of shaping is...

Plastic is an ambivalent material: On the one hand, due to their versatile properties and their wide range of applications plastics have revolutionized many areas of daily life in the past decades. On the other hand, plastic poses a complex environmental problem due to its production, use and...