With a number of events scheduled in 2012 and early 2013 we have already exchanged powerful ideas and lessons learned from transition processes in communities throughout Europe. On 6 and 7 June 2013 the final conference of InContext, together with the Informed Cities Forum 2013, will bring a creative platform to do so again. Conference applications can be completed on...Read more
Environmental policy is one of the most important policy fields in Germany. However, little knowledge exists about the roots and development of environmental policy or the political consultancy in this field. In this project, these developments shall be traced by applying the "oral history" method. 21 interviews will be held with experts from the environmental field. The interviews will be documented on the project website.
The project aims to conduct oral history interviews on the emergence and development of scientific policy advice in the field of environmental policy, therebyRead more
On 28 February 2013, Green Grid Radio returned to a local focus with a broadcast titled "A Day in the Life of a Bay Area Environmental Think Tank," which featured Dr. Tanja Srebotnjak, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute. She spoke about the San Mateo office's recent work in the Bay Area and more broadly about the role a think tank such as Ecologic Institute can play in European and US environmental policy making.
Berlin, Germany / Washington DC (17 January 2013)
For the third year running, Ecologic Institute was voted into the Global Top Ten Environment Think Tanks in the prestigious Global "Go-To Think Tank Index," conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. Ecologic Institute—based in Berlin, Germany, and Washington, DC—continues to be the only environmental Think Tank ranked among the Top 75 Think Tanks in Western Europe, where it rose from 37th place in 2011 to 33rd place in 2012.
On 6 December 2012, Ecologic Institute and the German environmental publishing house Oekom Verlag co-hosted a Dinner Dialogue with Jorgen Randers in Berlin. Jorgen Randers is a co-author of the Club of Rome "The Limits to Growth" report published in 1972 and a Professor of Climate Strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School. During the dinner dialogue he presented insights...Read more
During the 7th Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis at Tilburg (The Netherlands), Golo Bartsch presented recent developments of German political consulting, and adressed some of the legitimacy questions caused by them.
From 5th to 7th of July, political scientists from all over the world gathered at Tilburg, where the Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University hosted the 7th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA). Guided by the conference topic "Understanding the Drama of Democracy", theRead more
The "Westphalian system" of international relations, based on delineation, non-interference, and separation, hinders effective management of environmental resources, such as trans-boundary rivers. In this article, R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute explains how cooperation and sharing responsibilities over watercourses between states provided the basis for the US Constitution and the institutional order of the EU, and now drive a new transnationalism that erodes the Westphalian system. The article is available for download.
The long essay...Read more
Improving the implementation and enforcement of European environmental legislation will be one of the key priorities of the EU’s upcoming 7th Environmental Action Programme. In a study for the European Commission the Ecologic Institute, together with the Institute for European Environmental Policy and BIO Intelligence Service, is studying several options to improve the national complaint-handling and mediation mechanisms in the environmental field.
Background
Environmental law is characterised in many cases by its lack of directly and individuallyRead more
What does policy consultancy mean in practice? What is a think tank and what does it do? These and other questions were discussed by Doris Knoblauch and Gesa Homann within the framework of a teaching assignment at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences. Some 40 students from the bachelor program participated in the block seminar, which was split into three two-day blocks.
This was the third summer term in which Ecologic Institute Fellows taught the course as so called “practice partners.” Students were introduced to the institute’s workRead more
Ecologic Institute compiled the national study for Germany, which focused on the Rhine and Elbe basins and mainly analysed the origins and past experiences of public participation approaches in water management. The study is available for download.Read more
