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Research
The overall aim of the professorship is to analyze how effective and efficient policies for the protection of natural resources can be designed that combine economic incentives and self-regulation. To this end, we strive to understand: (i) how people make decisions when faced with an environmental dilemma in a given context, (ii) why and under which circumstances people sometimes cooperate to protect natural resources, (iii) how people’s intrinsic motivation to cooperate can be influenced by policies, and (iv) how people's social and environmental preferences can be strengthened.
The working group, headed by Prof. Dr. Stefanie Engel, is dynamic, international and partly interdisciplinary. Today, more than ever, projects require the cooperation of people with different knowledge and skills, who jointly consider complex problems from interdisciplinary perspectives and thereby break new ground.
We conduct applied research in developed countries (e.g. Germany, UK, Switzerland) as well as in developing and transition countries (e.g. Colombia, Peru, India and Uganda).
The environmental themes analyzed include topics such as climate protection and adaptation, protection of biodiversity, water usage and the relationship between land use activities and the provision of ecosystem services.
Inner Growth for Sustainability Transformation
“Inner Growth for Sustainability Transformation” is a pilot project assessing cognitive plasticity as a key facilitator for sustainability and aims to strengthen the interdisciplinary collaboration at Osnabrück University.
Latest project: DFG "Participatory vision-building for collective action in natural resource management"
The project seeks to identify the potential impacts and analyse the underlying mechanisms of different participatory interventions - participatory vision-building, in particular - on collective action in environmental and natural resource management. For that purpose, the project draws on the concepts and methods of institutional analysis, behavioural sciences and experimental economics. We gather experimental data on Andean farmers' individual and collective resource use and how different types of participatory interventions can affect these.
Latest Project: EU-Horizon 2020-Project FRAMEwork
On September 29-30, 2021 the first Full Assembly Meeting on the
EU FRAMEwork project (https://www.framework-biodiversity.eu) took place online with all project partners and advisory board members and allowed a great exchange on project progress so far.
CoVaCoa: Sustainable consumption decisions in the context of telecoupling
On Oct 16, 2021, a design workshop of the project team together with practice partners and advisory board members was held online within the DBU-funded project
"CoVaCoaConsumer decisions,Value chains & Cocoa"
(https://www.geographie.uni-osnabrueck.de/covacoa.html). Besides reporting on research progress and further sharpening research questions, the workshop facilitated a much appreciated exchange among the practice partners on their efforts to promote sustainable cocoa production.
