EU Ideas Lab: Green Ideas for Europe

2022-02-11
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On the occasion of the German EU Council Presidency, in 2020 the DAAD called for its alumni associations, regional offices, and European information centres to organise interdisciplinary Ideas Labs dealing with seven key topics – such as ‘migration’, ‘’, and ‘digitisation and transformation of the economy’. ‘The aim was and remains to ensure that our alumni are motivated to introduce their ideas for Europe and also to network more closely in the process’, says DAAD Senior Desk Officer Christina Schaar. Despite the fact that several pre-planned workshops had to be cancelled due to the corona pandemic, between May 2020 and October 2021 there were a total of eight that did take place. Half of these were dedicated to the European Green Deal. Christina Schaar believes that ‘This shows the extent to which the DAAD’s key topic of sustainability is also an issue that is significant to our alumni.’

The EU Member states used the European Green Deal to commit themselves to reducing their net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, thereby enabling Europe to become the first climate neutral continent. This commitment covers ecological, economic, and social aspects. It requires that CO2 emissions in the EU should drop 55 per cent by 2030 compared to the level in 1990. Far-reaching changes in the areas of financial market regulation, energy supply, transport, trade, industry, agriculture, and forest management are envisaged to ensure that this target is achieved.

#DAADalumni4EU – Ideas for Europe

The four Labs dealing with the European Green Deal in Hungary, Serbia (including alumni from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro), Poland, and Romania produced a wide range of creative ideas, says Schaar: ‘This indicates the great success of collaboration among very committed and highly qualified alumni from quite different domains who are using their personal and professional expertise to pursue a common goal.’ The alumni from Budapest and Zlatibor were working on approaches in education policy and academic communication (see Alumni Portraits), but the winning idea developed by the virtual lab in Romania led by Mihaela Andreea Voniea aimed to use psychological insights to achieve individual changes in consumer behaviour.

Dr Bálint Forgács

Dr Bálint Forgács is Senior Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Psychology at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest. This cognitive scientist and expert in psycholinguistics completed his doctorate at Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) in 2014. From 2010 to 2011 he conducted research as a DAAD scholarship holder at the Humboldt University of Berlin and at the Free University of Berlin.

‘Among other things, I conduct research into the role of metaphors in communication. Academic communication likes to use terms from other areas to describe new phenomena. These metaphors have a substantial influence on how we perceive the phenomenon. A “greenhouse” is a fragile structure that was designed to keep plants warm. The metaphors “greenhouse effect” or in the English-speaking world also “blanket effect” are unsuitable metaphors for conveying the message of a fatal and irreversible process. We speak of global “warming” rather than overheating. And we use passive expressions such as “climate catastrophe” or “climate collapse”, yet humanity is actively responsible for the changes – and can actively manage and mitigate them. These gentle metaphors come from a time when climate change wasn’t yet an urgent threat. The language on this subject was also filtered and distorted by information campaigns run by oil companies.

I consider it to be extremely important that we refresh our academic communication. That’s why I took part in the Ideas Lab called “The European Green Deal – Your view of the European path to climate neutrality”. It was great to be involved in three rounds of discussions on new communication strategies with experts and DAAD alumni from different disciplines. I believe that DAAD alumni – and researchers in general – can make a significant contribution to sustainability. They should not only choose their metaphors very carefully, they should also make it abundantly clear to policymakers that they need to act swiftly and decisively.’

Prof. Dr. Azra Kadic

Prof. Dr. Azra Kadic teaches educational sciences at the University of Herzegovina in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The expert educational ecology wrote her doctoral thesis at the University of Sarajevo. In 2018 she received a DAAD scholarship for a research and work stay as Postdoc at the Hamburg University.

In view of the great challenge to humanity posed by climate change, educational ecology is more important than ever to help students develop an understanding of ecological processes and environmental problems as early as possible. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is currently a discussion about including "environmental protection" as a new subject into the curricula for the nine-year elementary school, or to include environmental topics in the subject of biology. Both would be very unsatisfactory! After all, as the United Nations' Agenda 2030 also stipulates, all school subjects should teach education for sustainable development and educate the young generation to shape their world sustainably. That is why I advocate for educational ecology to be included in the curricula across all subjects. High-quality education systems are a powerful lever for implementing the 2030 Agenda.

I found the "European Green Deal - Sustainable Ecological Change" idea lab in Zlatibor very interesting because the programme was so diverse: topics ranged from sustainable urban planning to renewable energy and water supply to environmental impacts from the industry. It was important to me personally and professionally to learn more about the European Green Deal from different perspectives of different scientific disciplines.

As DAAD alumni we should promote international exchange and at the same time act sustainably ourselves. In this way, we can not only contribute to environmental and climate protection in Europe, but also take on a pioneering role in combating climate change worldwide!

The participants in the Polish virtual lab adopted the motto ‘’ in developing their suggestions relating to social media challenges, which demonstrate how each and every one of us can make our own environment more sustainable in everyday life. A prize was awarded to the campaign (English: #cyclinghero) run by Wiktoria Zaton, Daniel Gebler and Mateusz Osiecki, which has already been implemented in the meantime. Social media channels were used to invite people to cycle an everyday journey for which they would normally use their car or public transport, and then to post a photo of it with the hashtag for the challenge.

Selected ideas from the eight workshops will be presented at the major hybrid closing event from 17 to 19 March, which will also be attended by Members of the German Bundestag and the EU Parliament. Alumni will also have the opportunity of introducing further suggestions at this event. The participating alumni will join topical workshops to collaborate in finding solutions to Europe's most pressing issues. The ideas and recommendations that are developed will be recorded in policy briefs. The plan is then to submit these policy briefs to political decision-makers.

Continue reading on the Alumniportal Deutschland

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#DAADalumni4EU – Ideas for Europe

Continue reading on the Alumniportal Deutschland

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