LEUPHANA SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT - Enabling a Transdisciplinary Approach 29th February – 2nd March 2012, Lüneburg, Germany

Dear colleagues,

For distribution to your networks of sustainability professionals: Call for papers!

On behalf of the Conference Organizing Committee, I would like to inform you of the:

LEUPHANA SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT - Enabling a Transdisciplinary Approach 29th February – 2nd March 2012, Lüneburg, Germany

The institutionalization of sustainability as a regulative idea has onlystarted in some spheres of activity and some areas of the world. To achieve transitions towards sustainability, continuous inquiry, learning, and adaptation is needed. And this requires science to go beyond disciplinary – and even interdisciplinary – approaches. By bringing about mutual learning, collaborative research, and problem solving among business, government and civil society, transdisciplinarity can serve as an important guiding concept for sustainability science and practice. Over the last 10 years, progress has been made to better understand and design the interface between sustainability science and transdisciplinarity. The conference focuses on three leading questions:

1. What insights about the role of transdisciplinarity for sustainability transitions have we gained over the last 10 years? 2. What gaps in research still remain? 3. How can we fill these gaps?

These guiding questions will focus the debates in workshops, plenary and parallel sessions in four topical areas: Biodiversity, Global Sustainability, Education, and Corporate Sustainability. At the conference leading researchers, particularly in sustainability, and high-level decision- makers will meet in a transdisciplinary setting with a goal of creating new insights to help move sustainability forward. Keynote speakers from civil society, politics, and business will be among others: Angelika Zahrnt (RNE, BUND/former chairwoman), Kersten-Karl Barth (Director Sustainability Siemens AG), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party of Germany, tbc).

For the pre-announcement of the conference and the call for papers please go to: http://www.leuphana.de/sustainability-summit

We are looking forward to receiving your abstracts and hope you will be able to join us in Lüneburg next February/March.

More information about the conference, such as the provisional program, venue etc. will soon be available at the conference website.

Best, Harald Heinrichs Gesa Luedecke

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Gesa Lüdecke Dipl. Umweltwissenschaftlerin / Environmental Scientist

Fakultät Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften / Department Sustainability Sciences

Institut für Umweltkommunikation / Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication

Leuphana Universität Lüneburg Geb. 11, Raum 131 Scharnhorststraße 1 21335 Lüneburg Germany

Phone: +49 (0) 4131_677-1565 Fax: +49 (0) 4131_677-2819

luedecke@uni.leuphana.de www.leuphana.de