Green Knowledge | Science Portal for Sustainability

Team Members: Daniel Fischer (lead), Hanna Selm, Robin Marwege, Jana Timm, Nora Wehofsits, as well as Robin Plenzat as student assistant.

Global change is a transformation process which is unique in its speed, often threatening and which completely re-establishes the relationship of mankind to its natural bases of life. The concept of sustainable development, which has been discussed since the last quarter of the last century, is widely acknowledged today as a guiding principle for the shaping of a sustainable human-nature relationship. With the challenges of sustainable development in the context of global change, new expectations arise for science and research. It requires new ways of scientifically investigating the dynamics of the problem, transferring their findings into practice and guiding them into concrete action perspectives. This also involves the challenge of communicating scientific processes and findings in such a way that both scientific and non-scientific actors can use them.

 

Objectives

The portal “Green Knowledge” grants access to a broad public to topics, actors and processes in the research field “sustainable development”. The target group includes all those who deal professionally, civil society and / or private with this topic. The portal is an interface between science and society and aims: (a) to make science accessible to questions of “sustainable development” and thus to address both the scientific and the non-scientific public; (b) to not just present results, but explain processes and discuss perspectives; (c) to stretch the arc from theoretical backgrounds to practical materials. At the center of the portal are therefore contributions, which edit issue-specific contents editorially. For more in-depth research we offer an advanced search in our database.

 

Methods

The core of the portal “Green Knowledge” is edited content, so-called “articles”. These are written on thematic priorities (such as sustainable consumption, biodiversity) and pursue one of these five priorities: (1) Introductions: articles that allow an introduction into a topic and provide orientation; (2) Scientific perspectives: articles that show the views of different scientific disciplines; (3) Behind the scenes: articles that explain how scientists (in their projects) work; (4) Bibliography: articles with systematically selected scientific publications (eg books, articles from magazines); and (5) Findings: articles that refer to videos, guides and other (practical) materials.

The project was initially funded by Bernhard and Ursula Plettner Foundation, as part of the German Foundation Center (until 2014), and has been maintained independently since then.