In May 2014, the 7th ICAP Training Course on Emissions Trading brought together 25 experts from China and South Korea to learn about emissions trading as a tool for climate protection and to discuss the options of implementing such systems in developing countries. The session in Beijing was the seventh of its kind and continues a series of past ICAP events held in other cities including Berlin, The Hague, Madrid, Dublin and Alajuela / Costa Rica. Michael Mehling, Benjamin Görlach and Matthias Duwe facilitated the course.

The fourth RADOST annual report provides a comprehensive overview of activities and results of the RADOST project in the period from April 2012 to January 2013. The richly illustrated volume describes the state of research and networking in the six focus areas of coastal protection, tourism and beach management, water management and agriculture, ports and maritime economy, conservation and land use as well as renewable energies. The report is available for download.

This empirical report presents the four case studies of the InContext project: GELA - GEmeinsam LAndwirtschaften, a community-supported agriculture project and Thursday Veggie Day, an initiative to reduce meat consumption, and Municipal Energy Transition Process and Emission-Zero cooperative, two projects for citizen-led investments in renewable energies. The study is available for download.

This synthesis report reflects on the four cases of alternative consumption and production niches observed in InContext. From the cross-examination of the empirical material, it distills tentative conclusions on what can be learnt from the emergence and governance patterns of these niches. The case study is available for download.

Ranging from climate policies over the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to biofuels and resource efficiency policies, this paper summarizes the most important political starting points for a more sustainable land use. It has been developed within the project GLOBALANDS and presents the main results of the analysis of more than 120 policies worldwide. The analysis focuses on the policies' objectives and mechanism as well as their relevance for sustainable land use. The full report will be available in August 2013.

As part of the project InContext, Ecologic Institute has designed four posters concerned with sustainable lifestyle initiatives in the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria. The posters, illustrated with photos and maps, provide in-depth information on the process and results of the initiatives. They were displayed at the final project conference of InContext and are available for download.

Action research is the collaborative production of scientifically and socially relevant knowledge through a participatory process. Real-life problems are addressed and new theoretical insights gained. This research brief introduces the concepts of action research, sustainability transitions, and transition management. It presents key issues for conducting action research and how these have been dealt with in the practice of the research teams in the three communities of the InContext project. Furthermore it reflects on the role of the action researcher. The research brief is available for download.

From urban gardening and networks of sharing to community-owned wind farms: citizens' initiatives emerge all over Europe in a quest to find new answers to today's pressing challenges. This policy brief explores new forms of cooperation between local governments and these bottom-up initiatives. It argues that getting involved with initiatives helps local governments to be an active player in their community's change dynamics. This cooperation furthermore requires new ways of engaging and participating between the groups.

This policy brief outlines the main characteristics of this approach and the challenges that these pose for research funders. It discusses whether and how this kind of research can be scaled up and how EU funding mechanisms could support solution-oriented, transformative research. The policy brief is available for download.

This study developed a detailed assessment of the potential threats, risks, damage costs, and existing adaptive capacities of Member States in the realm of the CAP and Cohesion Policy, as well as an appraisal of options and strategies through which the CAP and Cohesion Policy can adapt to a changing climate. The study makes recommendations and offers guidance to public authorities in Member States on how to mainstream climate into and climate proof expenditures and measures under Cohesion Policy and the CAP. The study findings are of direct relevance for the programming of CAP and Cohesion Policy expenditures under the next EU Multi-Annual Financial Framework from 2014 to 2020. The final report is available for download.

In an issue focusing on "Transformative Science" of the German-language journal "Ökologisches Wirtschaften", Thomas Jahn of the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOeE) and R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute present the Ecological Research Network (Ecornet) and explain the historic, current, and expected future roles of the participating, independent policy-relevant research institutes.