Headline: IASS launches research initiative: "Transdisciplinary Panel on Energy Change"

"Changing energy communally: Intermediate results and ways to success” is the TPEC opening event with Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer and Prof. Dr. Matthias Kleiner on March 7th in Berlin.

February 23, 2012. The rapid, encompassing transformation of the energy system targeted by Germany’s energy change will succeed only with a broad, lasting social consensus as its base. This was the finding of Angela Merkel’s ethics commission “Secure Energy Supply” at the end of May, 2011.

The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) is now opening its "Transdisciplinary Panel on Energy Change" (TPEC) to promote the communal energy change. It sets its main focus on on a transdisciplinary monitoring of the energy transition. The Panel will gather the relevant expertise in dialogue with representatives from academia, business and civil society as well as from within the framework of research projects. At the same time, TPEC gives impetus for secure energy supply, progressive environmental and climate protection as well as the economic and social dimensions of sustainability. The panel on energy change will open with an event in the Humboldt-Carré in Berlin on March 7, 2012. In addition to a discussion of pending urgent challenges in the energy transition and possible solutions, the two Ethics Commission co-chairs of the Ethics Commission, Professor Klaus Töpfer (Executive Director IASS) and Professor Matthias Kleiner (President of the German Research Foundation) will further explain the role of science. Hans-Joachim Reck (Chief Executive of the Association of Municipal Enterprises) will speak about the implementation of energy policy at the municipal and local levels.

For more information about the launch event, please contact Judith von Pogrell, E-mail: judith [dot] vonpogrell [at] iass-potsdam [dot] de (judith.vonpogrell (at) IASS-potsdam.de)