Third Round for the Campus Prize

Excellent works on sustainable futurology have been honored with the research prize for sustainability that has been awarded by the Kellner + Stoll Foundation, the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), the University of Bremen, and the alumni association since 2016. Many dissertations and master’s theses had to be evaluated, and the selection of the winners was quite difficult. In the end, however, the two prizes for master’s theses were awarded to Daniel Ortiz and Philipp Kenkel.

In his work, Daniel Ortiz studied the impact of different management practices of protected marine areas in North Sulawesi in Indonesia. His focus lay on processes rather than single parameters in a new type of monitoring.

For his master’s thesis, Philipp Kenkel focused on resilient energy systems of the future. Kenkel developed a structural model in which different technical facilities can be connected and linked in such a way that CO₂-free energy sources – biofuels in this particular case – are produced and a cycle is created.

Dr. Anna Schwachula was awarded a prize for her dissertation that deals with the cooperation between Germany and developing and emerging countries. Based on empirical data, the social scientist inquired into the German funding policy and its orientation toward sustainability goals. In short, her work showed that a technical and business-driven understanding of sustainability prevails in research policy. In her work, Schwachula recommends a research policy of cooperation characterized by partnership that is aligned with the goals of a global and sustainable development.

In accordance with these important political topics, a panel discussion was held after the award ceremony. Fritz Habekuß, editor of the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT and member of the jury, spoke about the subject of research for a sustainable future as a challenge for science and politics with Susanne Grobien (CDU), Nima Pirooznia (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Katharina Riebe (SPD), and Miriam Strunge (DIE LINKE).

The current election period in Bremen and Europe, thus, added weight to the Campus Prize 2019. Only cooperation among the fields of science, industry, and politics can take on the challenges of the future.

_{Author: Manuela Brocksieper}