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Hydrogen (H2) produced with renewable energy is a key technology for a low-CO2 supply of electricity, heat and mobility. However, there are still many technical, economic and social challenges to be solved before green hydrogen can become a mainstay of a renewable energy system. With the H2-Wyhlen project, a "real laboratory of the energy transition" will be launched on January 1, 2021 with the aim of developing an overall economic concept for the use of green hydrogen.

The decision to enter the hydrogen economy is currently still fraught with uncertainty for companies, meaning that the politically targeted dynamic market ramp-up still seems unlikely at present.

The international journal GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society invites Masters students to participate in the GAIA Masters Student Paper Award. Masters students are encouraged to submit their results from research-based courses or Masters theses in the field of transdisciplinary environmental and sustainability science. Every year, one article will be selected by a jury as the winner of the GAIA Masters Student Paper Award. The Award is endowed by Selbach Environmental Foundation and DIALOGIK.

The joint project RIESGOS 2.0 ends in February 2024. A demonstrator for a web-based multi-risk information system has been developed with the involvement of users. The tool allows to simulate and visualise possible interactions of natural hazards as well as cascading effects and their impacts. The users see the demonstrator as a complementary analysis and visualisation tool to already established information systems. The demonstrator will enable authorities to improve their disaster preparedness and, for example, adapt land use planning to risk scenarios.

The V4InnovatE project, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), has released a guide aimed at assisting funding organizations, businesses, and institutes in implementing the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the research, development, and innovation of renewable energy technologies.

During the online symposium celebrating the 20th anniversary of DIALOGIK, Professor Ortwin Renn, the Executive Director and co-founder of DIALOGIK, addresses in his presentation the question of how necessary transformations in the economy and society can be aligned with the principles of democratic and deliberative decision-making processes. Renn argues that this can only be achieved if the transformation is seen as a collective task, involving all societal actors from science, politics, economy, and civil society to every individual citizen.

The V4InnovatE project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), has published a special issue on the application of RRI in the journal Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. The Special Issue on „Responsible Research and Innovation as a toolkit: indicators, application, and context” explores the role of toolkits in fostering RRI practices and their potential for implementing responsible innovation practices.

Online-Symposium zum 20-jährigen Bestehen von DIALOGIK

19. Oktober 2023 // 9:00 bis 11:00 Uhr // online via Zoom

Kommunikation und Partizipation sind zu Schlüsselworten für eine erfolgreiche Transformation der Gesellschaft in eine nachhaltige, klimaneutrale Zukunft geworden.

An article on the results of the V4InnovatE project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, has been published in the journal Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. The paper presents a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) base indicator system to shape the design of technologies in the field of energy transition innovations. It proposes a guideline for its application to assist R&D performing organisations and funding organisations in the design, selection, and communication of research proposals.

The energy crisis in the past year 2022, started by Russia's war on Ukraine, has highlighted the vulnerability of energy supply structures in Germany. This has led to a grown awareness of a secure, independent and affordable energy supply. In this context, accelerating the energy transition is not only a decisive factor in achieving the climate goals, but also the key to overcoming the dependencies and vulnerabilities in Germany's energy supply.

On 13 and 14 June 2023, the first symposium of the Energy Research Networks will take place in Berlin (and online). At this symposium, DIALOGIK is co-hosting the workshop "Where do we stand in research on society's participation in the energy transition?" with the University of Hohenheim/ Chair of Innovation Economics. The workshop will cover:

The international journal GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society invites Masters students to participate in the GAIA Masters Student Paper Award. Masters students are encouraged to submit their results from research-based courses or Masters theses in the field of transdisciplinary environmental and sustainability science. Every year, one article will be selected by a jury as the winner of the GAIA Masters Student Paper Award. The Award is endowed by Selbach Environmental Foundation and DIALOGIK.

In an empirical study, DIALOGIK investigated the attitudes and options of employees working in home-offices with regard to an energy- and resource-efficient use of IT equipment. For this purpose, two online focus groups were conducted in July 2022 with employees of industrial and service companies from Baden-Württemberg. The publication first provides information about the participants' experiences with working at home and the software and hardware equipment available to them.

Another journal publication resulted from the Kopernikus-project “Energy Transition Navigation System” (in short: ENavi). Findings of work on urban mobility policies have been published in the journal Energy, Sustainability and Society. The results were generated in the ENavi-research focus "Decarbonization of Transport", in which DIALOGIK was also active. The German energy transition is first and foremost based on political decisions and interventions. The paper argues that these decisions need to be assessed ex ante to ensure a good governance approach to energy policies.

The RECIPES-Guidance on the application of the precautionary principle in the EU is now available at Zenodo with this DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7015025. The guidance covers three meta-themes: scope of application of the precautionary principle; organisation of expertise for application of the precautionary; and participatory processes to support the application of the precautionary principle.

Video streaming is more and ore becoming the standard  in Germany. Four out of five Internet users now stream online videos. Most of them access video portals such as YouTube, Vimeo or Twitch. TV broadcasters' media libraries ("Mediathek")  are also very popular. In addition, streaming of series and films on video-on-demand portals such as Netflix or Amazon Prime has become so established that over half of the users would pay for the services.

Several of the invited speakers and panellists stressed at the RECIPES conference “Precaution for Responsible Innovation: New Options to Move Forward” (11 May 2022) that the topicality of the precautionary principle has increased in the past, e.g., due to the increasing transgression of planetary boundaries. They considered the principle to be even more important in the future.

The RECIPES team has developed a guidance for application of the precautionary principle in the EU and consulted various actors from science, business, policy-making and organized civil society for this purpose. The guidance advises on how to deal responsibly with uncertain risks in the development and implementation of technology in the EU. Target groups of this guidance are primarily EU policy makers, EU agencies, and EU policy support organisations and bodies that are concerned with risk regulation or the governance of science, technology and innovation.

The guidance on risk communication, which DIALOGIK created as part of the BMBF-funded project RiCoRT, is now available as an open access publication. The title of the guidance is "Risk communication for infection-protective behavior in a long-lasting pandemic. Guidance using the COVID-19-pandemic as an example". The document highlights that, in addition to knowledge, norms and values are important reference points for risk communication in the COVID-19-pandemic.