2011
New Collaborator
In July
2011, Susanne Menzel joined the IWAGO team. She did her doctoral thesis at the University of
Göttingen (Germany) on an environmental economics topic. She then spent some
time ‘post-docing‘ in England (Environment Department, University of York) and
Canada (Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver) where she worked on moral motivation and trade-off
making in the context of nature conservation. She also did conceptual work on
the compatibility of the concepts of consumer sovereignty and sustainability.
In a sabbatical post-doc in the USA (National Center for Analysis and
Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA) she did interdisciplinary research on economic
aspects of ecosystem services. Since January 2009, she has been working at WSL
(Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research) on
participatory planning processes in the context of combined flood-protection
and restoration projects using qualitative and quantitative social research
methods.
Highly Commended Award
The article "Innovating
Value-configuration spaces: Insight from Public Transport Services in
industrialized and newly-industrialized countries" by Samuel Petros Sebahtua, Heiko Gebauer,
Bo Enquist and Mikael Johnson won a highly commended award at the 2nd
International Research Symposium in Service Management in Indonesia.
New Journal „Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions“
The first issue of the journal
„Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions“
was published, a further step for the growing scientific community in
the field of sustainability transitions. The editorial team includes
editor-in-chief Jeroen van den Bergh, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
and ICREA and VU University Amsterdam, the associate editors Giorgos
Kallis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and ICREA, and Bernhard Truffer, University of Berne and Eawag. The journal is
associated with the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN).
Summer School for PhD Students from 15.-19.8.2011
Chalmers University
and Cirus are organising a Summer School in 2011 for PhD students working in the field of technological innovation systems.
Further information: Programme & Jochen Markard
IWAGO Science Workshop "Integrated Water Governance"
On 23rd February 2011, 17 scientists and experts from Switzerland and Germany met in the seminar center ARA Glatt to discuss the ways to an integrated governance of water. The workshop is a contribution to the NRP 61 project IWAGO under the lead of Dr. Andreas Klinke. Although the core ideas for an integrated use of water are stated in the federal constitution, the jurisdiction and legislation are not always coherent. Good concepts exist but the implementation is still difficult. The project IWAGO will use the workshop results and further work package results to design a policy architecture for an integrated water governance for Switzerland.
New PhD Student
Sabine Erlinghagen joined the Cirus team in January 2011. In her doctoral thesis
Sabine will address the origins of the "smart grid" as a new innovation system.
In particular, she will focus her research on the influence of the IT and
telecommunications sector on the emergence of the new innovation system. In
addition to her academic background with a Master in European Management (Dipl
Kauffrau and Diplôme de Grande Ecole) from the University of Cologne and ESCP
Europe in Paris, Oxford and Berlin, Sabine builds on 8 years of professional
experience with various functions in the IT and telco industry. Her research
will be conducted under the guidance of Dr. Jochen Markard and Prof. Volker
Hoffmann (ETHZ).
Bernhard Truffer is appointed titular professor at Berne University
In January 2011 the University of Berne awarded Bernhard Truffer the
title of titular professor in recognition of his extraordinary services.
Bernhard has been at Eawag since 1996 and has headed the department for
Innovation Research in Utility Sectors (CIRUS) since 2006. Before his arrival at
Eawag he was a research associate at Freiburg University and taught at a number
of institutions including ETH Zürich. In 2002 he started teaching at Berne
University, where he habilitated in 2006 in "economic geography and sustainable
development" on the basis of his habilitation dissertation "The analysis of
socio-technical innovations in environmental and regional research".