Current Projects
BioMaterialities (Junior Research Group)
Duration: 2019-2024
Funded by: BMBF
Management: Sarah Hackfort und Miriam Boyer
Team: Louisa Prause (bis 07/2023), Margit Lindgren (bis 07/2021), Franziska Kusche, Camila Moreno (bis 05/2022), Sarah Saave (seit 02/2022), Johannes Fehrle (seit 06/2022) und Cornelius Heimstädt (seit 09/2023)
BIOMATERIALITIES is a five-year research project focusing on the materialities of living nature and their economic valuation in the High-Tech Bioeconomy. The research group is composed of six doctoral and post-doctoral researchers who analyze how biophysical processes intersect with and are changing social relations pertaining to production, reproduction and politics. The research group will trace commodity networks guided by an analysis of political economy, political ecology, economics of care, feminist theory and critical geography.
BIOPOLISTA – Bioeconomy Policy Implementation in Bioeconomy States (Junior Research Group)
Duration: 2023-2028
Funded by: BMBF
Management: Maria Proestou and Nicolai Schulz
Team: Four PhD students (from May 1, 2023), Jayshrita Bhagabati (SHK), Clara Meier (SHK)
The Junior Research Group BIOPOLISTA examines the implementation of bioeconomy policies adopted by emerging "bioeconomy states" to ensure the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy. Policies promoting bioeconomy transformation are proliferating around the world. Scholars have focused on bioeconomy discourses, international governance patterns, conflicting goals, and policy design and content. However, little to no research has focused on understanding whether and how bioeconomy policies are implemented. The project addresses the lack of a comprehensive perspective on the implementation of bioeconomy policies by combining policy analysis approaches with the historical-institutionalist concept of the "bioeconomy state". On this basis, it examines divergent patterns and causes of bioeconomy policy implementation successes and failures within and across six countries with significant bioeconomies and emerging bioeconomy states (namely, Colombia, France, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States of America). BIOPOLISTA is co-directed by Dr. Maria Proestou and Dr. Nicolai Schulz and will run for five years from March 1, 2023. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the "Bioeconomy as Societal Change" program.
Homepage: https://biopolista.de/
CliWaC – Climate and Water under Change
Duration: 2022 – 2024
Founded by: Einstein Stiftung Berlin und Berlin University Alliance
Projektleiter: Peter Feindt
Bearbeitung: Thomas Vogelpohl
Projektpartner: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung, Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei, Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung
The Einstein Research Unit CliWaC is a transdisciplinary research initiative of the Berlin University Alliance to address water-related risks under climate change in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. In an innovative methodological way, CliWaC will bring together social and natural science as well as practical expertise from stakeholders in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary project to support the governance of mitigation and adaptation measures in response to climate change. The focus of CliWaC is on the model region Berlin-Brandenburg. This makes it possible to take a look at different natural, social and political conditions – especially in the interdependencies of urban and rural areas. These in turn go hand in hand with different needs and options for action. The research topics of CliWaC include (i) ecosystems, biodiversity and ecosystem services, (ii) flood and wastewater management and (iii) water resource management.
Website: https://www.cliwac.de
CUBES Circle: Future Food Production
funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education, Humboldt University of Berlin and project partners, March 2019 – February 2024, WP leader: Peter Feindt
CUBES Imagefilm:
Web: https://cubescircle.de/vision
Youtube: https://youtu.be/H1McoSk21-M
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CddSdaEj4U9/
ENFASYS - ENcouraging Farmers towards sustainable farming SYstems through policy and business Strategies
Duration: September 2022 - August 2026
Founded by: European Union (GA no. 101059589)
Projektleiter: Peter Feindt
Bearbeitung: Diane Kapgen
Projektpartner: Eigen Vermogen Van Het Instituut Voor Landbouw- en Visserij Onderzoek (EVILVO) BE; Conseil Europeen des jeunes agriculteurs AISBL (CEJA) BE; Udruzenje Eko-Inovacija na Balkanu (ABE) RS; GAIA Epicheirein Anonymi Etaireia Psifiakon Ypiresion (GAIA) GR; Groupe Sup De CO Montpellier (MBS) FR; Norsk Institutt for Biookonomi (NIBIO) NO; Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) BE; Institut de l’élevage (IDELE) FR; Teagasc – Agriculture and Food Development Authority (TEAGASC) IE; Alma Mater Studiorum – Universita di Bologna (UNIBO) IT; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HUB) DE; Forschungsinstitut für Biologischen Landbau Stiftung (Fibl), CH
Today’s farmers find it difficult to deal with the several lock-ins within food systems that keep them from transitioning to sustainable farming systems. Policies, together with business models and social innovations, need to be strengthened to overcome lock-in challenges. The EU-funded ENFASYS project aims to better understand lock-ins and levers in farming and food systems, as well as factors stemming from the behaviour of farmers, consumers, and other food chain stakeholders. It will test the possible effectiveness of policy and business interventions in European countries and screen 160 current intervention cases. The project will design policy mixes, business strategies, and social innovations that encourage farmers to transform their production systems.
More specifically, ENFASYS aims to stimulate a just and robust transition to sustainable, productive, climate-neutral, biodiversity friendly and resilient farming systems (SFS) by improved policies and business strategies that encourage farmers to change their production systems. In current food systems, farmers are challenged by multiple lock-ins that prevent them to move to SFS. To overcome this and thus to support the Green Deal and in particular the Farm to Fork ambitions, strengthening public strategies (policies) should go hand in hand with strengthening private strategies (business models, social innovations). To reach this aim, ENFASYS goals are (1) an improved understanding of lock-ins and levers in farming and food systems;(2) an improved understanding of behavioural factors of farmers, consumers and other food chain actors;(3) more and better evidence on the potential effectiveness of interventions;(4) a more structured approach to link knowledge to action. To do so, ENFASYS will frame current transitions to SFS and screen 160 cases for current interventions. Through systems analysis, behavioural and experimental studies, ENFASYS will uncover lock-ins from a systemic and behavioural point of view. The potential of policy and business interventions will be tested in 12-15 countries across Europe through experimental studies (discrete choice experiments, framed field experiments and randomized trials) and system dynamic modelling. To link systemic and behavioural insights to action and to understand the impact of the interventions on systems level, results of these studies will be combined into system and behavioural based theories of change. Together with stakeholders and enriched by the research results, ENFASYS will co-design policy mixes, business strategies and social innovations and stimulate their implementation. Strategic communication, dissemination, exploitation and tailored capacity building towards all our target groups, will maximize ENFASYS’ impact.
Project website: https://www.enfasysproject.eu/
FoodCLIC – Integrated Urban Food Policies – Developing Sectoral Connections, Spatial Linkages, Social Inclusion and Sustainability Co-Benefits to Transform Food Systems in City-Regions,
Laufzeit: September 2022 – August 2027
Mittelgeber: European Commission unter HORIZON-CL6-2021-COMMUNITIES
Teilprojektleiter: Prof. Peter H. Feindt
Bearbeitung: Julia Behringer
Projektpartner: Stichting Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Kooridnation), Aarhus Universitet, Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona, Budapest Fovaros Onkormanyzata, Cardiff University, Cariplo Factory SRL, Comune di Capannori, Empresa Municipal de Ambiente de Cascais EM SA, ESSRG non-profit KFT, Ernährungsrat Berlin e.V., European Food Banks Federation, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa, Fundació Privada Institut de Recerca de la Sida-Caixa, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, ICLEI European Secretariat GMBH, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability e.V., Affiliated entity: ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability – Africa, Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Municipiul Braşov, Stichting Voedsel Verbindt, Universita di Pisa, Universitatea Transilvania din Braşov, Aarhus Kommune, Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Association mondiale des grandes métropoles
Fördervolumen: € 11.861.832, davon HU Berlin: € 611.062.
Europe’s urban areas face significant challenges to ensure the availability and consumption of healthy, affordable, safe and sustainably produced food. Such challenges converge within local food environments, but are often neglected by public planners. Promising initiatives taken by municipalities to change the architecture of food choice often fail to become embedded in the wider policy context and to reach deprived and vulnerable groups. Key factors responsible for this are: (1) siloed ways of working and (2) fragmentation of knowledge on facilitators and barriers related to food system transformation. These factors hinder the development and implementation of integrated urban food policies. FOODCLIC will create strong science-policy-practice interfaces across eight European city-regions (45 towns and cities). The backbone of such interfaces will be provided by Food Policy Networks, which will manage real-world experimental Living Labs to build policy-relevant evidence through learning-in-action. Activities will be informed by an innovative conceptual framework (the CLIC), which emphasizes four desired outcomes of food system integration (sustainability co-benefits, spatial linkages, social inclusion and sectoral connectivities). Capacity-building and direct support for intensive multi-stakeholder engagement (including food-deprived and vulnerable groups) will enable policy actors and urban planners across partner city-regions to develop continuously evolving integrated urban food policies and render planning frameworks food-sensitive. Results will be communicated and disseminated amongst others by extending the novel policy practices to another eight city-regions in Europe and Africa, an online Knowledge Hub, a high-level Think Tank and partners’ networks. In these ways, FoodCLIC aims to contribute to urban food environments that make healthy and sustainable food available, affordable and attractive to all citizens.
Website: https://foodclic.eu/
GreenGrass – Innovative use of grassland for a sustainable intensification of agriculture at landscape scale
Duration: 2019-2024
Founded by: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (grant no. 031B0734K)
Management: Peter Feindt
Bearbeitung: Malte Möck
Projektpartner: Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Grünlandzentrum Niedersachsen/Bremen, Horizont Group GmbH, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Universität Hohenheim, Universität Kassel, Universität zu Köln, Texas Trading GmbH
The inter- and transdisciplinary research project GreenGrass develops innovations for grassland management to get grazing animals out of the stall and back onto pasture. Virtual fences, remote sensing technologies and decision support software provide new opportunities in grassland management. Their development considers effects on ecosystem services and on the economic viability on the farm as well as in the value chain. To ensure that these innovations meet the needs of practice and that they become part of a social transformation already in the process of development, research is conducted as co-creation. In three German farming regions (Havelniederung, Solling, Wesermarsch), practitioners from farming, animal welfare, administration and from the value chain meet in living labs on a regular basis to design and test the innovations.
Website: https://www.greengrass-project.de/
IFST - Social cohesion, food and health: Inclusive food system transitions
Duration: Januar 2021 - August 2024
BUA project partners: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Free University Berlin, Technical University Berlin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Further project partners: Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ)
Cooperation partners: FoodBerlin; Ernährungsrat Berlin; Wirtschaftsförderung Brandenburg, Potsdam; Egerton University, Kenya; Senatsverwaltung für Justiz, Verbraucherschutz und Antidiskriminierung, Berlin; Vernetzungsstelle Kita- und Schulverpflegung Berlin e.V; Regionalwert Treuhand, Eichstetten; Netzwerk Solidarische Landwirtschaft, Bad Belzig; Deutsches Institut für Ernährungsforschung, Berlin
Project coordination: Prof. Dr. Peter H. Feindt (HU Berlin, speaker), Martina Schäfer (TU Berlin, co-speaker), Klaus Jacob (FU Berlin, co-speaker)
Co-PIs (in alphabetical order): Tilman Brück (IGZ) , Carsten Dreher (FU Berlin), Sarah Hackfort (HU Berlin), Susanne Huyskens-Keil (HU Berlin), Knut Mai (Charité), Cornelia Rauh (TU Berlin), Caroline Stokes (HU Berlin), Jürgen Zentek (FU Berlin)
Project staff: Christiane Barnickel (to March 2023, HU Berlin), Benjamin Hennchen (TU Berlin), Christoph Kubitza (HU Berlin), Dagmara Weckowska (FU Berlin), N.N.
Founded by: Gefördert im Rahmen der Exzellenzstrategie von Bund und Ländern durch die Berlin University Alliance / Supported with funds from the Excellence Initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder by the Berlin University Alliance under the programme line Grand Challenges 1: Social Cohesion, Exploratory Projects