The CleanSea Marine Litter Symposium & Film Premiere was attended by well over 200 participants from science, policy, industry, civil society and the media. The interdisciplinary research carried out in the European FP7 CleanSea Project was presented by the work package leaders showing main results of the work of the teams. Susanne Altvater of the Ecologic Institute talked about what policy makers can do about marine litter. You can still catch the speeches and CleanSea film on YouTube. The CleanSea brochure is available for download.

On 2 December 2015, Dr. Josselin Rouillard, Fellow at Ecologic Institute, together with Dr. Alistair Hunt from the University of Bath, gave a presentation at the ECONADAPT side event at COP21/CMP11 in Paris. The presentation slides are available for download.

At the International Symposium on COP21, Susanne Langsdorf spoke about the role non-state actors can play in international climate negotiations, with a focus on cities. While by definition non-state actors cannot be subject of international law; the Lima-Paris Action Agenda, the "Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action" and activities such as the "non-state actor zone for climate action" provide new options for non-state actors to play a role in the climate negotiations. The presentation "Cities and Climate Change in the context of COP21" is available for download.

In two presentations Ina Krüger introduced the work of Ecologic Institute at the 13th International Conference "EUROPE-INBO 2015" for the implementation of the European Water Directives. On 21 October 2015, Ina Krüger presented at a workshop of the project EcoCuencas the work of Ecologic Institute on a guideline for the financing of river basin organisations (RBO) in Latin America, and provided an outlook for the planned work in scope of this project. The presentation slides are available for Download.

On 19 October 2015, local and regional coastal implementing agencies met in Bologna (Italy) on invitation of the FP-7 project RISC-KIT and the Geological Service of the Emilia-Romagna Region for the first Italian RISC-KIT Stakeholder's Day. Participants discussed the state of the art of coastal protection and the improvement of prevention, mitigation, and preparedness measures against coastal storms, erosion, and flash floods in the region. During the consultation Dr. Grit Martinez from Ecologic Institute presented the outcomes of a socio-political-cultural and ecological analysis. The analysis highlighted factors essential to the improvement and implementation of disaster risk reduction measures in the strategically important touristic region Emilia Romagna.

On 18 November 2015, McKenna Davis, Fellow at Ecologic Institute, gave a presentation at the European Conference on Biodiversity and Climate Change on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. The biennial conference, organized by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the European Network of Heads of Nature Conservation Agencies (ENCA), focused on "Nature-based solutions to climate change in urban areas and their rural surroundings: Linkages between science, policy and practice." The presentation slides are available for download.

At the 10th German Climate Conference, Dr. Grit Martinez (Ecologic Institute) gave an overview of how the consequences of climate change have been addressed by human society during the past decades. Meanwhile, there is a prevailing consensus that both deep-rooted climate change mitigation efforts and adaptation measures are necessary to prevent a climatic change with unmanageable consequences. The presentation is available for download.

On 15 September 2015, Dr. Ana Frelih-Larsen, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, gave a presentation at the workshop "Agriculture and LULUCF in 2030 EU Climate and Energy Framework: State of the art and best practice for climate action in the agriculture and forestry sectors". The presentation slides are available for download.

The dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the most active and influential international courts. How the WTO dispute settlement bodies decide cases was the topic of a presentation that Christiane Gerstetter, Senior Fellow in Ecologic's legal team, gave at an international law conference in Oslo. The presentation slides are available for download.

In this presentation, Grazia Maria Vagliasindi, University of Catania, and Christiane Gerstetter, Ecologic Institute, presented the results of the EU-funded research project "European Union Action to Fight Environmental Crime" (EFFACE) to an audience of criminologists and police officers. The presentation is available for download.

On 7 September 2015, Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers presented tentative project results from the ongoing project "A framework for Member States to support business in improving its resource efficiency", commissioned by DG Environment and running from January to October 2015, at the 4th Meeting of the Expert Group Greening the European Semester in Brussels. The presentation slides are available for download.

What do we know about the effectiveness of legislation to combat environmental crime within the EU and its Member States? And how can we measure its effectiveness? These were the two core questions that Christiane Gerstetter, Senior Fellow in Ecologic's Legal Team, addressed in a presentation at the conference of the European Environmental Law Forum in September 2015 in Aix-en-Provence. The presentation is available for download.

Between 1 and 3 September 2015, experts from eleven countries in Europe, North and South America met at São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in São Paulo (Brazil) to discuss how the interactions between social science and humanities (SSH) and environmental science (ES) researchers are opening new pathways to transformative research in the environment, providing innovative solutions to global problems. As research initiatives are taking an increasingly interdisciplinary perspective, involving studies that require analysis of the world at multiple space- and timescales, these new visions of research are affecting the way theories are formulated, analyses are per-formed, and research is conducted. Consequently, strengthening these research interactions is essential. Dr. Grit Martinez participated in the event by invitation from the German Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF).

In the first week of July the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) had invited to its 8th Biennial Conference to Versailles. Under the motto “Greening history: Studying the environment across disciplines: past, present, future” environmental historians from around the world met to exchange their empirical findings for a sustainable future and to discuss further applied research trends amongst the humanities.

On 22 June 2015, Eleftheria Kampa, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute gave a presentation on the German Forum on fish protection and downstream migration at the 5th International Fish Passage Conference in the Netherlands. In her presentation, she illustrated how the Forum has been a successful instrument for participation and improving acceptance for measures on fish protection and downstream migration, which are a topic of intensive and often controversial discussions in recent years in Germany. The presentation slides are available for download.