The City of Frankfurt am Main is awarding Dr. Thomas Jahn the Goethe Plaque in recognition of his outstanding contributions to environmental and sustainability research. His work has made Frankfurt a recognized center for social ecology. The Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) congratulates its co-founder and long-time scientific director on this honor.
“Under the leadership of Thomas Jahn, ISOE has developed into an internationally visible institute that today, as a strong player in Frankfurt’s scientific landscape, makes important contributions to sustainability and environmental research,” states the City of Frankfurt in its citation.
“We are delighted by the recognition Thomas Jahn is receiving for his pioneering work in social-ecological research with the award of the Goethe Plaque from the City of Frankfurt, and we offer our heartfelt congratulations,” says Flurina Schneider, scientific director of the ISOE. “For all of us at the institute and far beyond, Thomas Jahn is an outstanding visionary in critical sustainability research and a role model for scientific work that is consistently transdisciplinary in its approach.”
New Paths in Environmental Research
The sociologist, who studied and earned his doctorate in Frankfurt am Main, recognized early on that sustainability problems cannot be solved by technical means alone. In 1989, Thomas Jahn, together with Egon Becker, Irmgard Schultz, Thomas Kluge, and Engelbert Schramm, founded the Institute for Social-Ecological Research in Frankfurt as an independent, non-university institute to break new ground in environmental research.
In concrete terms, this meant moving beyond the technology-dominated environmental research of the 1980s and establishing interdisciplinary research that bridges the social and natural sciences, understanding ecological crises as a consequence of society’s relationship with nature – a goal that Thomas Jahn and his colleagues achieved with perseverance, tenacity, and a vision ahead of their time. The German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat, WR) paid special tribute to this pioneering achievement by the ISOE in 2016 and 2020.
Pioneer of Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research
The transdisciplinary research approach for the then-new field of social ecology was also developed largely by Jahn. Based on the premise that transformations can only succeed if they are supported by society, Thomas Jahn established groundbreaking foundations, methods, and quality criteria for this research approach. The goal: to methodically integrate scientific knowledge from natural and social science disciplines with existing everyday knowledge in society and to critically examine it.
“The transdisciplinary research approach is now being applied not only by the next generation of ISOE researchers but also nationally and internationally in sustainability research,” emphasizes Flurina Schneider, who has held a professorship in Social Ecology and Transdisciplinarity at Goethe University Frankfurt since 2021. Through his consistent commitment, Thomas Jahn has set new standards for how science can address societal challenges. “In light of the current crisis situations, which are constantly giving rise to new sustainability problems, Thomas Jahn’s visionary perspective on shaping necessary transformation processes is more relevant than ever.”
The presentation of the Goethe Plaque to Thomas Jahn by the Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main, Mike Josef, will take place on June 2, 2026, at 5 p.m. in the Kaisersaal of the Römer.
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