For more than 20 years, the NIÖ network has been debating the latest perspectives on institutions of environmental coordination in an informal, yet continous framework. Inspired by classical and heterodox, game-theoretical and other research approaches to institutions, scholars from all over Germany met at the University of Passau on April 25 and 26, 2024. Professor Martina Padmanabhan invited to the Chair of Critical Development Studies - Southeast Asia to analyse the latest developments in research and organization of common goods and the commons, such as water, food and climate. Influences from environmental economics, political ecology and polycentricity underline the diversity of intellectual approaches within the network. The collective and individual development of institutional analysis is exemplified by polycentric approaches, among others, examining the coordination of local bodies of knowledge in networks.

NIÖ welcomed a large delegation of scientists from the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn. Amongst other things, they outlined the breadth of research on the water-energy-food ecosystem nexus (WEFE Nexus) and the associated challenge of identifying conflicting policies. Nina Hagemann and Stephan Bartke from the Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt) in Dessau showed concrete steps on how a knowledge-based organization approaches sustainable transformation in national and international cooperation.

The workshop offered the opportunity to network within the University of Passau and to exchange ideas with the Bioeconomy research group headed by Dr. Therese Venus and the Chair of Economics and Economic Theory. Latter Chair holder, Johan Graf Lambsdorff, wondered whether he should cut down a ginkgo tree in his garden, thus sparking a lively discussion about the legal personhood of non-human beings and who to appropriately  organize around their interests.

As part of the Research Colloquium Passau, junior research group leader Dr. Prathiwi Putri from the University of Kassel, Chair of International Agricultural Policy and Environmental Management, gave a lively insight into conflicts and knowledge co-production in spatial planning using the example of official and informal water infrastructure in Jakarta. She invoked the metaphor of dance, which captured the physicality and mobility of the fluid medium and corresponding forms of organization. 

The NIÖ network is planning a workshop at the Humboldt University Berlin, Chair of Resource Economics, in honor of its Spiritus Rector Professor Konrad Hagedorn. 

‘We need to counter the image of farming as an unattractive occupation with bleak prospects for young people. If not us, then there is no future for Indonesian agriculture,’ declares Gus Qomar, co-founder of Sekolah Tani Muda (Young Farmers School), or Sekti Muda for short.

 

A students’ review of Andrea Nightingale’s book “Environment and sustainability in a globalizing world”.

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