Professor Martin Welp

   Eberswalde University of Sustainable Development

   Professor Pierre Ibisch

   Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development

   Muhammad Nawaz Shareef  

   University of Agriculture, 

   Multan, Pakistan

   Professor Asif Ali

   Tajik Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 

   National Republican Centre for Genetic Resources

   Professor Karomatov Sharofiddin Sharifovich 

   Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, 

   Department of Biology and Biotechnology

   Professor Sabir Nurtazin

   Lanzhou University, 

   International Centre for Tibetan Plateau Ecosystem Management

   Professor Long Ruijun

Augsburg University, Institute of Geography, 

Chair of Human Geography and Transition Research

                             Professor Matthias Schmidt

   Humboldt-Universität of Berlin, 

   Integrated Research Institute on 

   Transformations of Human-Environment 

   Systems (IRITHESys)

   Professor Jonas Østergaard Nielsen

   Dr Ralf Bloch

   Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development

   Dr Andrei Dörre

   Freie Universität Berlin

   Dr Irna Hofman

   University of Oxford

   Dr Ulan Kasymov

   Technische Universität Dresden

   Professor Hermann Kreutzmann

   Freie Universität Berlin

   Dr Daniel Müller

   Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies

   Professor Jonas Østergaard Nielsen

   Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

   Professor Martin Petrick

   Giessen University

   Dr Fabricio Rodríguez

   Friedrich Schiller University, Jena 

   Professor Matthias Schmidt

   Augsburg University

   "Bioeconomy as Societal Change" 

   Network of Junior Research Groups

                               German Federal Ministry of Education and Research 

This webpage is maintained by social science oriented junior research groups, including TRANSECT, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the Program „Bioeconomy and Societal Change“. It aims at sharing research results and at informing about ongoing research activities and related events. For detailed information please also visit our individual project websites.

   “Environing Infrastructure: Communities, Ecologies, and 

   China’s 'Green' Development in Contemporary Southeast Asia” 

   Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, 

   Ludwig Maximilians University Munich

Environing Infrastructure: Communities, Ecologies, and China’s “Green” Development in Contemporary Southeast Asia is a five-year research project (2020-2025) funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. It is carried out by a team of researchers based at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich. It focuses on the environmental components of Chinese large-scale infrastructure development in Southeast Asia. 

Southeast Asia, a major target for Chinese investments, is on the brink of numerous ecological crises. There is rising awareness across the region of the potentially devastating environmental impact of Chinese infrastructure projects. On the other hand, China is a crucial economic partner and a model of development. 

Environing Infrastructure studies these dynamics by engaging with local communities and Chinese planners through long-term, comparative ethnographic research. Rooted in Social Anthropology and the Environmental Humanities, it explores the nexus of infrastructure development, local ecologies, and China's "green" framing of its global ambitions. 

   "Roadwork: An Anthropology of Infrastructure at China's Inner Asian Borders"

   University of Zurich

‘ROADWORK: An Anthropology of Infrastructure at China’s Inner Asian Borders’ is a four-year research project (2018-2022) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and based at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich. The project team conducts ethnographic fieldwork along roads that have been designated as key links at the Sino-Inner Asian interface of the China-initiated Silk Road Economic Belt. Archival research and GIS analysis, two further research methods employed by the team, will help to identify social relations and temporalities that are difficult to capture through ethnography, but which nonetheless powerfully affect roads and travel in this region of Asia. The conceptual aim of the project is to propose a novel framework to theorize the social life of roads through a dialogue with the concepts of place and time, and to bring decay and maintenance to the centre of anthropological enquiry.

   "China Made: Asian Infrastructures and the 'China Model' of Development"

   Center for Asian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder 

   and the Hong Kong Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences 

   at the University of Hong Kong 

Over the past decade, China has invested tremendously in infrastructure development, resulting in dramatic social and cultural changes in both rural and urban regions.  It has also promoted an infrastructural development model beyond its borders as part of a newly aggressive foreign policy. China Made is a partnership between the Center for Asian Studies (CAS) at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the Hong Kong Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (HKIHSS), and is supported by an Asian Responsive Grant from The Henry Luce Foundation. China Made will explore both of domestic and international dimension of China’s infrastructure development. The project is also meant to shift the academic focus from broader geopolitical and international relations perspectives to a finer grained analysis of the infrastructures themselves and the on-the-ground social and cultural dimensions of their construction. It will involve three academic conferences – two hosted by CAS and one hosted by HKIHSS – postdoctoral and graduate research positions, and the development of online scholarly resources for project participants and the broader academic community.

  "ÖkoFlussPlan"

   Eberswalde University of Sustainable Development

Preservation of Selected Ecosystem Services in the Floodplains of Naryn / Kyrgyzstan Through Renewable Energies and Short Rotation Plantations, Including Sustainable Land and Water Management and Capacity Building,

In the semi-arid and arid climate of Central Asia, rivers and floodplains constitute important regional biodiversity hotspots and provide relevant ecosystem services. The floodplain ecosystems along the Naryn river in Kyrgyzstan are still in a largely natural state. Over a stretch of more than 600 km, its upper and middle reaches still preserved a completely unregulated dynamic river regime fostering riparian forests of rich biodiversity. The forests provide ecosystem services important for local inhabitants, such as the provision of pasture and fuel wood, recreation areas, and erosion protection. Yet, the persistence of the forests is compromised by overgrazing and excessive fuel wood extraction. In addition to that, planned hydropower plants threaten to disrupt the natural dynamics. 

The overarching goal of ÖkoFlussPlan (BMBF 2019-2022) is to preserve the floodplain forests along the Naryn River and to offer and implement sustainable solutions for the local population. The present state of biodiversity will be recorded in one project area. The current use pressure will be reduced by offering alternatives for removing wood: On the one hand, short rotation plantations will be established that can replace the wood from the forests, on the other hand modern technologies for the generation of renewable energies will be displayed as pilot facilities. The project strives for a close dialogue with the local population in order to integrate local knowledge and to communicate the project results back to the local stakeholders. Embedded in a big partner setting covering a multitude of research disciplines and implementation approaches, the activities of the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) will focus on stakeholder analysis, stakeholder workshops, and capacity building.