Completed Projects since 2017

The guiding principle of the Ariadne joint project is to provide an overview and orientation for the design and implementation of the energy transition through excellent research in a joint learning process with politics, business, and society. The aim of the project is to create an overarching perspective, analyze the impact of policy instruments and identify a whole range of possible policy options for shaping the energy transition in Germany.

Increasingly, discussions of the energy transition are revolving around questions of fairness, justice, and social responsibility, with a particular focus on financing, public acceptance of wind turbines and transmission lines, the coal phase-out, and working conditions in the wind and solar industry.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the main drivers of climate change, and it is broadly perceived as a harmful substance as a result.

Global warming, rising sea levels, extreme weather events – the impacts of climate change are already apparent despite ambitious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon can be used as a raw material in industrial processes, such as in the manufacture of building materials and chemicals. This project aims to assess the current status and further development of various CCU technologies and identify those that deserve support.

Limited access to financing, insecure land tenure, and insufficient agricultural services – the factors that constrain the uptake of sustainable land management techniques by farmers in developing countries are well known. But how can smallholder farmers in developing countries be best supported in their efforts to manage their lands sustainably? The project Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security aimed to address this question.

This event drew attention to the poor state of soils around the world. A vital resource, soils underpin human and ecosystem health and are not renewable within human time frames. Soils form the basis for more than 95 per cent of all food produced worldwide and are an enormous source of biodiversity. Despite this, billions of tonnes of soil are lost to erosion or are sealed over every year. Famine and growing conflicts over land use are just some of the consequences. The Global Soil Week brought together policymakers and stakeholders from the private sector, science, and civil society to develop strategies and measures that support sustainable soil management.

Swathes of valuable farming land are lost each year to the effects of land degradation, erosion, and soil salinity. Sixty-seven per cent of all arable land in Africa is currently endangered. What could be done to halt or even reverse this trend? What steps could be taken to improve the livelihoods of impoverished rural populations? These questions were the focus of the research project AGORA.