Better perception: A human head with compass Better perception: A human head with compass iStockfoto/Trifonov Evgeniy

Headline: Perceptions, Values, Orientation

Researchers in the area "Perceptions, Values, Orientation" reconstruct and generate orientation and transformation knowledge aimed at the individual and societal levels. Working across a range of topics, this research area explores the relationship between individuals, societies, and politics. What normative requirements can be distilled from the call for more sustainable lifestyles and governance structures to shape human behaviour? Throughout society, ideas (imaginaries), rhetorical structures (narratives) and values come to bear of which the respective actors themselves are frequently unaware. These imaginaries and narratives convey ideas about desirable futures, perceptions of conflicts, or fundamental views about the general nature of societal transformation. They feed into and shape (political) institutions, in turn eliciting analogous behaviour among individuals. This process also informs the development of strategies that are intended to address sustainability challenges, but which frequently reproduce ideas and values that are inconsistent with action for sustainable development. This research area seeks to render these largely subconscious ideas visible and to reflect upon their potential to foster or hinder change. The research group "Narratives and Images of Sustainability" analyses social-scientific discourse and undertakes art-based accompanying research, with the aim of reconstructing the collective narrative patterns that determine current discourse, and considers how these patterns might be modified to better serve democratic transformations towards sustainable development. Researchers in the group "Politicizing the Future" analyse contemporary future practices with respect to their potential to envisage and facilitate the evolution of open and sustainable futures. The researcher group "A Mindset for the Anthropocene" develops practical processes and resources that enable individuals and actors to reflect upon and transform mental paradigms in order to develop more sustainable strategies for action.

Research Groups

News

Alle Anzeigen
Delegates to the COP looking to take a break from the flood of information at the climate conference and to reflect on sustainability challenges together with other participants are invited to visit the “Dialogue and Reflection Space”.
Dialogue and Co-creation

IASS Fosters Dialogue and Reflection at Climate Conference

The IASS will host a “Dialogue and Reflection Space” at the forthcoming climate conference in Madrid. The space will provide an alternative setting for discussion, with daily events including guided reflection and a variety of interactive discussion formats. The space will be used to explore how a culture of cooperation can be leveraged to advance climate negotiations at the COP.

read more
Urbane Mobilität
Urban mobility

Media Continues its Love Affair with Cars

How do daily newspapers in Germany report on the subject of urban mobility? For a study by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) that explores how current and future urban mobility are reported on in the German media, a team of researchers examined a selection of articles from daily newspapers. The study reveals that sustainable forms of mobility are seldom discussed. Similarly, the climate crisis is rarely mentioned in articles relating to mobility and transport. If the articles have one thing in common, it is the implicit assumption that the car-friendly city is desirable.

read more
The future starts in the mind. For sustainable development, we need to become more aware of the long-term consequences of our actions.
Special Feature

One Planet, Many Futures

The future has always been an important frame of reference for sustainable development. Indeed, the concept of sustainability emerged from the realisation that we need to use our planet’s resources sparingly in the interests of future generations. Many different people are working on ideas and solutions for the future and taking steps towards their implementation. But who are they? What steps are they taking? And what kind of futures do they want to bring about? These are the questions addressed by a special feature of the journal Sustainability Science.

read more
Zimbabwe-after-cyclone_Idai_Copyright_Ashraf_Hendricks_GroundUp
Climate negotiations

Most Affected, Least Heard

It seems reasonable to expect that the people who suffer most from the impacts of climate change are represented in the international climate negotiations. Patrick Toussaint, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), has analysed the status quo from the perspective of international law. He concludes that those who currently bear the brunt of climate change – or will do so in the foreseeable future – have little or no influence on the negotiations.

read more
Senior Fellow Michael Palmer
Interview

Governance for Future Generations

In recent months young people across the world have been going on strike on Fridays to protest about their governments’ failure to adequately address the climate crisis. In their view, lack of political action to protect the climate is putting their future in jeopardy. But Wales is leading by example here with a law passed in 2015 that echoes the demands of the Fridays for Future protesters: the Well-being for Future Generations Act. It requires public authorities in Wales to consider the long-term effects of their decisions and make sustainable development a touchstone for policymaking.

read more

Blog Posts

Giving future generations a say in policy and society

"Future generations" have become an integral part of discussions about sustainability. This stems all the way back to the very definition of sustainable development in the Brundtland Report, but has gained new significance with the explosion of youth environmental movements we’ve seen in recent years. The general public seems to agree that future generations should be taken into account in political decision-making processes: More and more people are understanding that their children’s or their grandchildren’s lives are under threat because of our decisions and lack of action on environmental degradation, climate change, and other sustainability challenges.

read more