Sustainability Goals

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The United Nations 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom.

In the 2030 Agenda, the international community has expressed its conviction that global challenges can only be resolved through joint action. The Agenda has laid the foundation for reconciling global economic development with social justice within the planet’s ecological limits.

On this website, we present a number of research projects, initiatives, institutions, and other projects at the University of Bremen that are working towards achieving the 17 UN goals. The projects listed are examples and do not represent an exhaustive list of relevant research projects and initiatives at the University of Bremen. The links below contain detailed articles from our up2date online magazine, press releases, and websites. Further information on the 17 SDGs is available at https://unric.org/en/united-nations-sustainable-development-goals/

Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

• The first step in order to avoid poverty is to research the reasons for poverty, including the effects on health, education, social participation, and on working conditions. The Institute for Labour and Economy at the University of Bremen has been investigating these topics. They recently worked together with the Bremen Chamber of Employees to research worker exploitation. more
   
• Free tampons and sanitary pads at the University of Bremen: The Autonomous Feminist Unit of the AStA Students’ Union initiates the distribution of free period products on campus. more

Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

• Biologist Barbara Reinhold-Hurek and fellow Namibian researchers improve the cultivation of legumes, which could provide an effective solution to the nutritional deficiency in Namibia's north. more
   
• The Stable Revolution: The historian Dr. Veronika Settele has investigated the development of German agriculture between 1945 and 1990. more

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

• How useful is the implementation of technology and AI in nursing? Researchers from the Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research are working on finding answers. more

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has once again named the Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research’s (IPP) Department of Social Epidemiology at the University of Bremen as a WHO Collaborating Centre on Environmental Health Inequalities. more

• How can Bremen become fit for the health challenges of the future? That is one of the questions being investigated by a research cluster of the University of Bremen within the Integrated Health Campus Bremen. more

Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

• The Virtual Academy of Sustainability offers free online courses on sustainability for students at universities in the state of Bremen. Openly accessible to all, the academy offers learning videos from a variety of disciplines, from the fields of communication studies to economics to psychology. more
   
• New Impulses for Teacher Training from the “Designing Interfaces” project: A team of 45 researchers developed innovative concepts for teacher education. more
   
• The Omid Farda Scholarship: Ten Afghan students received a scholarship offered by the University of Bremen together with the HERE AHEAD Academy. more

Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

• Prize for Outstanding Gender Equality Work: The Informatica Feminale – International Summer University for Women in Computer Science was awarded the 2023 prize for its contribution to promoting women in Computer Science in education, academia, business, and society. more
   
• What Can We Learn from Indigenous Communities? Corina Wieser-Cox is a research assistant at the University of Bremen and is doing their PhD on trans*gender & queer Mexican and Chicanx representations in film. more
   
• Istanbul Convention: Study by the Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) aims to Shed Light on Violence Against Women. The results should provide information on where there is a need for improvement in the counseling and assistance facilities. more

Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

• The Technical Thermodynamics research group of the Faculty of Production Engineering is researching modern processes for extracting drinking water from seawater. more
   
• The ProWaChip project at the Institute for Microsensors, -actuators and -systems (IMAS) worked on a BioChip for fast, on-site detection of bacterial contamination in drinking and industrial water. The BioChip was designed as a disposable product to fulfil hygiene and bio-safety regulations and manufactured from inexpensive, biocompatible plastic. more

Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

• Hydrogen is classed as the energy source of the future: It is climate-neutral and versatile. But how and where hydrogen can be best used in practice needs to be researched – and one of the places where that is happening is in the Department for Resilient Energy Systems at the University of Bremen. more
   
• Know-How for Better Batteries: They are meant to be increasingly powerful, more durable, and lighter. Researchers at the Faculty of Production Engineering in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM are working on building solid-state batteries on a larger scale so that they can reliably power cars and even airplanes. more
   
• Students of the Faculty of Production Engineering design an environmentally friendly solar pump for Bremen’s blockland in the “Lernfabrik,” the Learning Factory project. more

Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

• The collaborative project launched in 2023 at the University of Bremen with partners from research, development, and industry aims to establish a “Resource Development in Service Work – RessourcE” competence center. The central objective of the project is to develop and test solutions for workplace health as well as human resource development for semi-skilled workers in logistics and health-related services and examine whether they can be transferred to other economic sectors. more
   
• Institute of Labour and Economy (iaw): The iaw deals with the diverse aspects of work and social affairs. Areas of focus are the academic analysis of poverty and social inequality, municipal social, educational, and family policy, as well as Urban and Regional Studies in the state of Bremen. more

Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

• Systematic, sustainable access to digitalized datasets is essential for new scientific findings and innovations in research and society. With “Data Train – Training in Research Data Management and Data Science,” the U Bremen Research Alliance has created an interdisciplinary advanced training program for PhD students that passes on skills for dealing with research data and when drawing value from data. more

Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

• The first Cohesion Report by the Research Institute for Social Cohesion (RISC) examines the make-up of social circles of acquaintances in Germany. more
   
• Responsibility towards society: Solidarity has been a key component of research at the University of Bremen for 50 years. more
   
• The GlobaLab – Bremen Collaboratory on Global Solidarity research cluster investigates the conditions, opportunities, and limitations of global solidarity. It focuses on three research topics: the climate crisis, violent conflicts and wars, and global economic inequalities. more

Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

• Where in Bremen’s air exactly is the level of harmful nitrogen dioxide (NO2) too high? A measuring device from the Institute of Environmental Physics is riding along on top of a local streetcar to find out. more
   
• The Climate Neutral City District: Using the example of the Rüsdorfer Kamp neighborhood in Heide, researchers from the U Bremen Research Alliance are developing solutions that are sustainable, resilient, and transferable as part of the Quarree100 project. more
   
•  The University of Bremen won the 2023 Urban Data Challenge with its concept for data-driven improvement of sustainable cycling and micromobility in Hamburg. more

Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

• AI project loopsai : During food production and processing, valuable resources are often thrown away. Thorsten Kluß’ project developed an innovative concept for a sustainable circular economy to reduce food waste. Thorsten Kluß and his loopsai team’s efforts were honored with the German Sustainability Award. more
   
• The Fruity Twin project: To reduce spoilage of fresh food such as apples during storage, the team of the Institute for Microsensors, -actuators and -systems (IMAS) uses digital twins. These digital twins measure oxygen and carbon dioxide to determine the respiratory activity of the fruit. more
   
• The European Sea4Value project works on extracting raw materials from seawater, such as lithium, magnesium, and boron, which so far are mostly extracted in mines outside Europe. The Department of Engineering Thermodynamics at the University of Bremen is playing an important role in this project. more

Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

• The International Universities Climate Alliance has been established to fight global warming: The University of Bremen is the only participating German university. more
   
• BreGoS – Bremen Goes Sustainable: Higher education institutions in the state of Bremen and the Alfred Wegener Institute are striving to develop, test, and anchor sustainability concepts for research, teaching, and operations together. more
   
• “Climate – I’m Changing” school project: In cooperation with four pilot schools in Bremen and Bremerhaven, the MARUM project has developed and tested science-based courses and teaching materials to raise awareness of climate protection issues among children and young people. more

Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

• New Approaches to Coral and Biodiversity Conservation: Researchers from the University of Bremen and the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)want to help establish alternative protected areas – for example in the Coral Triangle off Indonesia. more
   
• EU project FACE-IT: Researchers at the University of Bremen came to the conclusion that due to climate change, underwater brown algae, also known as kelp, are likely to only be able to grow in shallower areas of the Arctic in future. more
   
• The Humboldt Tipping project develops sustainable coastal management for Peru. more
   
• Since its foundation in 2012, MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, anchored at the University of Bremen, has developed into an internationally renowned center for marine research. Here, its Ocean Floor Cluster of Excellence plays a significant role. The cluster aims to initiate a new chapter in ocean-floor research by quantifying exchange processes at this significant boundary layer and their roles in the Earth system. more

Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

• Esther Thomsen has studied seagrass beds intensively. For her dissertation, she studied the effects of aquaculture, which is practiced on a large scale not only in Asia, on the ecosystem of seagrass meadows in China on the island of Hainan. more
   
• “Campus goes Biodiverse“: As part of the collaborative project BreGoS – Bremen Goes Sustainable, the real lab is committed to alternative green space management on campus that fosters biodiversity. more

Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• What to do in cases of discrimination, conflict, and violence? Each year, ADE provides counseling to approximately 140 individuals from the university who are seeking advice. The facility also offers a comprehensive training program. more
   
• The Office for Students with Disabilities or Chronic Diseases (KIS) is an advisory service for students with visible or invisible, physical or mental impairments. The advice of KIS advice is confidential, independent, and free of charge. KIS provides, amongst others, advice on academic adjustments, hardship provisions, and offers other support services. more

Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

• YUFE is the acronym for Young Universities for the Future of Europe and is an alliance of ten European Universities and two non-academic partners. The alliance offers students and university staff Europe-wide opportunities to develop and grow in their academic and professional pursuits. more
   

• The Bremen Research Center for Energy Systems (BEST) is an association of professors of the University of Bremen in the broad field of energy systems. The goal is to create a scientific focus under the motto “Energy for Economy and Society” through the cooperation of internal expertise as well as the intensification of collaborations with industry, universities, and research institutions in Bremen, the state of Bremen and the region. more

• hyBit generates basic knowledge for the development of the hydrogen economy in the north of Germany. Their focus is on the transformation of large-scale industrial infrastructures via so-called hydrogen hubs in Bremen and northern Germany. more