Press Release of 15 November 2012

The WBGU report "World in Transition – A Social Contract for Sustainability“ is now accessible online as an e-learning seminar (http://wit.va-bne.de/) (www.wbgu.de/en/trafoseminar). Council members and invited speakers present the report and address the challenges of scientific policy advice. The E-Seminar consists of 11 lectures (2 presentations of 30 minutes and an interview).

Dirk Messner, Director of the German Development Institute / Deutschen Instituts für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and Co-Chair of WBGU is giving the "Lecture 04 - The Great Transformation: A Heuristic Concept“ as well as "Lecture 10 - Instruments and Recommendations for Action”.

The E-Seminar “World in Transition“ of the WBGU has been produced in cooperation with the Virtual Academy Sustainability in Bremen. The Academy is a project of the University of Bremen, funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt.

The aim is to provide freely available E-seminars on sustainability at no charge for university students. This offer is directed at students of all faculties and can be integrated in general studies programmes as well as dedicated bachelor and master courses. Credit points can be acquired after passing the electronic exam.

The E-Seminar is also a contribution to the Science Year 2012 of the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF) „Project Earth – Our Future“.

Interested universities are invited to direct their queries to:
Virtuelle Akademie Nachhaltigkeit: Nadine Dembski: dembski@va-bne.de
WBGU: Benno Pilardeaux: bpilardeaux@wbgu.de

The WBGU:
The German federal government set up the WBGU as an independent scientific advisory body in 1992 in the run-up to the Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. It consists of nine members, among them DIE-Director Dirk Messner as Co-Chair of WBGU, each appointed by the federal government for a period of four years.