A Foundation of Knowledge - VolkswagenStiftung · 8 Crossing Borders 2016 9 Review and Decision The Volkswagen Foundation is committed to the principles of peer review. Depending

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A Foundation of Knowledge

The Volkswagen Foundation and Its International Focus 2016

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The Foundation’s PurposeThe purpose of the Foundation is to support and advance the humanities and social sciences as well as science and technology in higher education and research.

(Statutes of the Volkswagen Foundation, § 2)

The Foundation’s MissionThe Foundation is committed to encouraging ambitious research across disciplinary, institutional, and national borders and to supporting creative researchers in breaking new ground.

Crossing Borders 2016 3

The Foundation in Brief 4

Funding 7

International Focus 10

Examples of Funding

Towards a Safer, Sustainable Future on Pasture Lands 16

500 Years of Periphery Is Enough 22

An Insoluble Dilemma? 26

A Network for Health 32

Replacing the Yardstick and Changing Perspective 36

Bio-Based Cement Solutions – Made in Africa 42

With Flexibility, a Sense of Responsibility, and Patience 47

Water Is Life, and Clean Water Means Health 50

Publishing Information 58

50

47 42

26

32

16

Content

4 Crossing Borders 2016 5

shares held by the state of Lower Saxony with the Foundation as beneficiary (funding category “ Niedersächsisches Vorab”). The funding within this context is provided in close cooperation with the state government to research institutions in Lower Saxony.

Organization

The Foundation is governed by the Board of Trustees. The Board comprises 14 eminent persons drawn from the ranks of leaders in academia and civil society, of whom seven are appointed by the Federal Government and seven by the State of Lower Saxony. The Trustees are completely inde-pendent and governed solely by the Foundation’s Statutes. The Board usually convenes about three times a year to discuss and formulate strategy and to decide on applications. The Trustees are responsible for the annual budget and accounts, as well as publication of the Foundation’s annual report and appointment of the Secretary Gene-ral. Dr. Wilhelm Krull has been Secretary General of the Foundation since 1996, and as such respon-sible for its management.

History

Following the end of World War II the owner-ship of the Volkswagen Corporation was unclear and claims were asserted from several sides. This situation was finally regulated by a treaty be tween the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Lower Saxony, which turned the auto-mobile manufacturer into a joint stock company and fixed the establishment of an independent private research funding foundation. The proceeds from the privatization (at that time 1,074 million German marks) provided the endowment capital of the Foundation. The Foundation is neither a corporate foundation nor affiliated to the compa-ny; its decision-making bodies are autonomous and independent.

Capital and Funds

Today the Foundation’s assets amount to 2.9 bil-lion euros. The funds are generated from these assets, mainly benefitting the “General Funding” of the Foundation. In addition, funds stem from the dividends earned from Volkswagen AG

Concept

Being completely autonomous and economically self-sufficient, the Foundation is free to develop its funding instruments and determine the topics it decides to support. As its funding concept is not rigid, the Foundation is able to meet the changing challenges facing modern society and provide the appropriate impulses for science and research. The Volkswagen Foundation constantly reviews its funding portfolio. Guiding principles are a pre-ference for transdisciplinary issues and approa-ches, reinforcement of international cooperation, and support for the upcoming generation of researchers.

Priority is given to persons and ideas that dare to cross borders in more than one meaning of the phrase – borders between countries or continents, between disciplines or concepts of mind, as well as between generations or societies. Presented with an opportunity to develop their own vision, researchers who fit this profile contribute towards broadening the horizons of their respective disciplines and sharpening the profile of their university.

The Foundation also attaches great importance to fostering research in and on foreign coun-tries, focusing on cooperation in symmetric partnerships.


Established as an independent research funding institution by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Lower Saxo-ny in 1961, the Volkswagen Foundation (Volkswa-genStiftung) has a strong tradition in providing support for all branches of science. To date, the Volkswagen Foundation has allocated more than 4.2 billion euros to over 30,000 projects in Germa-ny and all around the world.

Average annual funding in an amount of more than 150 million euros over recent years makes the Hanover-based Foundation the most potent private research funding foundation in Germany. The Foundation Statutes ensure its independent existence as a legal entity and its character as a common benefit organization.

The Foundation in Brief

The conference “Big Data

in a Transdisciplinary

Perspective” was held in the

auditorium of Herrenhausen

Palace in spring 2015.

Rebuilt in 2012

Herrenhausen

Palace is part of the

Foundation’s real

estate investments.

The former summer

residence of the Welfs

houses a museum

and a public congress

center, in which also

many science events

take place.


Core Principles

The Foundation’s support is available to the whole spectrum of academic disciplines, ranging from the humanities and social sciences, through the engineering and natural sciences, up to the bio-sciences and medicine. Funding is allocated to cover personnel costs for both academic as well as non-academic staff, for equipment and running costs. The Foundation is completely free to decide how its funds are to be allocated, which projects it considers worthy of funding, and whom it deems appropriate to grant funds to. The sole restriction is that this be in accordance with the Foundation’s Statutes which require all funding to be made to academic institutions and designated for a specific purpose. In general, all applications undergo scientific peer review.

Funding Concept

Overriding features of the Foundation’s funding concept include the preference given to new and promising fields of research, interdiscipli-nary approaches, support for outstanding and especially young researchers, boosts for interna-tional cooperation, a close interrelation be tween research, education and training, as well as enhancement of communication among resear-chers and between the scientific community and the public. The Foundation strives to be an active partner and to generate targeted impulses for the benefit of the national and international research communities. In pursuit of this goal it concentra-tes its support on specific, carefully selected fun-ding initiatives and calls. The scope of funding is not oriented solely to the needs articulated by the

scientific community. The Foundation’s focus of attention is also on current developments and issues where the economy, politics, and society look to science and scholarship to pro - vide adequate suggestions for solutions.

Funding Profile

The Foundation’s funding profile is reflected in the structure of its portfolio which comprises three main categories: Persons and Structures, Challenges for Academia and Society, and Interna-tional Focus. In addition, grants are also available for extraordinary projects (Off the Beaten Track), for communicating science and research, and in the regionally oriented area “Niedersächsisches Vorab” (Priority for Lower Saxony).

• Persons and Structures Here, the Volkswagen Foundation seeks to com-bine the explicit funding of individuals with targeted structural change. Support is offered to outstanding scholars and scientists with forward looking ideas. Their approaches to break new ground may also entail a certain element of risk. The aim is not solely to generate new knowledge, but also to develop alternatives to entrenched processes and structures in research and higher education. Funding initiatives and calls:

– Lichtenberg Professorships– ‘Freigeist’ Fellowships– University of the Future– Research in Museums– Opus magnum– Arts and Science in Motion (call)

Funding

Currently the Volkswagen Foundation has a staff of about 95, spread over three main divisions. Division I is responsible for the research funding, the other two divisions manage the Foundation’s assets and take care of finance and administrati-on. There are also four smaller units that directly report to the Secretary General, covering, among others, the areas legal affairs, evaluation/internal audit, events, and communication. The Founda-tion staff prepare the funding decisions for the Board of Trustees and execute the Board’s strate-gic decisions. This involves the conceptualization and implementation of funding initiatives, pro-cessing applications, informing and advising the applicants, and monitoring the funded projects from start to finish.

Investment

The “Investment Management Division” takes care of the Foundation’s capital assets, currently 2.9 billion euros. Their task pursues two main objectives: One is to ensure funding for research on a continuous basis; the other is to maintain the real value of the Foundation’s capital in the face of inflationary pressure. This calls for investment not only in interest-bearing securities, but also in

stocks, real estate, and alternative investments. The investment strategy is based on the portfolio theory of risk diversification.

Finance and Administration

Administering the Foundation’s finances and budgeting is a task for professional manage-ment. This is provided by the “Finance and Administration Division” which among other things takes care of the Foundation’s accounting and financial controlling. In accordance with requirements laid down in the Foundation’s Statutes, this group also prepares the annual financial statements for the Foundation’s audi-tors and ensures the ongoing internal control of assets. The unit “Human Resources and Cor-porate Services” is involved in the planning and implementation of everything necessary for efficient staffing and supports the manage-ment in all matters regarding the Foundation’s employees and recruitment. It also maintains the infrastructure necessary to ensure the smooth running of the office. The “IT-Department” is responsible for the coordination and deve-lopment of the Foundation’s information and communication systems.

International guests

at Herrenhausen

discussing lively

during a symposium

on “Europe in a Non-

European World” in

the festival room of

the congress center.


Review and Decision

The Volkswagen Foundation is committed to the principles of peer review. Depending on the respective funding initiative or call and the accordant review procedure, the Foundation may request a number of experts to submit their written assessments of individual applications. Another procedure involves peer review by a panel of experts. In this case, all the applications submitted within the scope of a funding offer are subjected to a comparative review process.

There is no permanent body of experts; rather they are selected from various disciplines, uni-versities and institutes – also from the non- university sector and from abroad – in accordance with the requirements of the individual applica-tions and funding initiatives. About 450 German consultants and 280 from abroad contributed their expertise to the peer review process in 2015.

Once an application has been approved by the Board of Trustees or the Secretary General, the allocated funds are in due course transferred to the recipient institution to be administered. One of the conditions attached to funding is that the Volkswagen Foundation receives an annual report on the development of the project, in addition to proper accounts recording how the allocated funds have been expended.

• Challenges for Academia and SocietyIn this funding category, the Foundation aims to provide incentives for research into new fields – including areas which may well harbor potential risk – and to stimulate investigations which trans-cend the existing borders – either those between science and the practice, between different disci-plinary cultures, or between the conventions of research in Germany and other countries.

The Foundation endeavors to stimulate research on issues for which policy makers, the economy, and the public at large look to science to provide orientation and scientifically founded concepts for shaping the future of society and for coping with current problems. Topics and issues are developed in close cooperation with academia.Funding initiatives and calls:

– Experiment! – In Search of Bold Research Ideas

– Life? – A Fresh Scientific Approach to the Basic Principles of Life

– “Original – isn‘t it?” – New Options for the Humanities and Cultural Studies

– ‘Mixed Methods’ in the Humanities? (call)– Integration of Molecular Components

into Functional Macroscopic Systems– Symposia and Summer Schools

• International FocusThe Volkswagen Foundation has a strong tradition in facilitating the internationalization of research in Germany and supporting effective collaborati-

ons between researchers from different countries and continents. Particular attention is paid to enabling foreign scientists and scholars, especially those from less developed regions of the world, to participate in internationally competitive research projects on an equal footing. In addition, the Foun-dation aims at inspiring academic interest in cur-rent and future global challenges that require a global perspective and new transnational as well as transdisciplinary approaches. Funding initiatives and calls:

– Europe and Global Challenges – Knowledge for Tomorrow – Cooperative

Research Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa– Between Europe and the Orient – A Focus on

Research and Higher Education in/on Central Asia and the Caucasus

– Post-doctoral Fellowships in the Humanities at Universities and Research Institutes in the U.S. and Germany

– International Research in Computational Social Sciences (call)

– Trilateral Partnerships – Cooperation Projects between Scholars and Scientists from Ukraine, Russia and Germany (call)

– Cooperative Research Projects on the Arab Region (call)

Also within the scope of most other initiatives, the Foundation accepts proposals from applicants based abroad, subject to the condition that the responsibility for a substantial part of the coope-ration rests with a German partner institution.

Off the Beaten Track

The Foundation also provides support for excep-tional projects which lie outside the scope of its current funding portfolio. This offer is open only to truly exceptional projects. Applicants are advised in every case to first contact the program director of the respective subject area. .

Communicating Science and Research

There is a pressing need to inform the public at large about the findings of research and to eluci-date the working conditions of science. Therefore, the Foundation conceived the funding scheme “Communicating Science and Research” provi-ding support for grantees in all initiatives for public relations activities, translations, and self-organized events. At times, there are also specific calls open to all applicants as was the case in 2015 referring to “Science and Data Driven Journalism”.In addition, the Foundation offers the opportunity to initiate international scientific meetings in the framework of its “Herrenhausen Conferences”. Scholars and scientists of all disciplines are invi-ted to submit outline proposals addressing issues that are characterized by societal relevance and large potential for innovation. Depending on the respective topic also representatives of other scientific organizations, NGOs, and journalists, as well as personalities drawn from the fields of politics, the economy, the arts, and culture should be involved.

Dr. Patricia Kanngießer – along with eight

other young academics who took part in the 2015

call – receiving her certificate of appointment

as a Freigeist Fellow of the Foundation from

the Secretary General, Dr. Wilhelm Krull. The

thematically open scheme supports personae

who strive to act as catalysts in overcoming

existing disciplinary, institutional, and even

national boundaries.

In the jungle of Java,

psychologist Professor

Katja Liebal (left)

and colleagues from

various disciplines

are investigating the

role feelings play in

research work: They

are analyzing the

emotions that arise

while doing field work

on the great apes,

for example, and

how these – hitherto

hidden – feelings

impact on the

implementation and

results of research

projects.


Global Challenges – Mutual Benefits The worldwide support for international coope-ration and exchange provided by the Foundation stems from an awareness of the tremendous mutual benefits that can be gained from facing and working with different views and approa-ches. The will to foster communication and understanding across cultures is the basis and a central element of the Foundation’s international commitment. From its very beginnings, while post-war Germany was still under reconstruction, the Volkswagen Foundation made use of the free-dom guaranteed by its statutes to also provide funding for academic institutions and research projects abroad.

Today, in light of the challenges associated with rapidly evolving political and economic structures across the globe, the ability to move beyond one’s own horizon and to collaborate successfully across borders has become increasingly important. There-fore, the Foundation strives to support effective

research collaborations between researchers from different countries and continents. On the one hand, the objective is to facilitate a stronger inter-national outlook of scholars based in Germany and to inspire academic interest in future global chal-lenges that require new transnational and trans-disciplinary approaches. On the other hand, it is to enable foreign researchers, particularly those from less developed regions of the world, to participate in internationally competitive research projects on equal footing. Achieving these objectives requires a vital contribution to sustainable capacity deve-lopment, which is offered in the form of training programs, fellowships, and funding for cooperative projects as well as by establishing and securing attractive career prospects for young researchers in their home countries. In recent years, the Foun-dation has spent almost one third of its general funding allocations on projects in the funding schemes of its “International Focus”.

Research in Global Perspective The funding initiative “Europe and Global Chal-lenges” was developed in cooperation with several European partner foundations: Riksbankens Jubi-leumsfond, Stockholm, Compagnia di San Paolo, Turin, and the Wellcome Trust, London. This initia-tive mainly addresses social scientists researching complex issues linked to the process of globaliza-tion. This is to be done in large-scale collaborative projects, involving colleagues across Europe and the entire world. It is expected that the growing international integration of science will lead to new insights into the current and future role to be played by Europe, and will, in turn, produce addi-tional stimuli for future research.

International Focus

Beyond the framework of this scheme, the Foundation organized several conferences on topics relevant to research in global perspective. The events were held at Hanover’s Herren hausen Palace and offered a platform of exchange be -tween experts from different parts of the world. Examples include “Europe in a Non-European World” (2013), “Re-Thinking Social Inequality” (2014), “China in the Global Academic Landscapes” (2014), and “Sustainable Development Goals and the Role of Research: A Focus on Coastal Regions” (2015).

Regional Engagement

Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and the Cauca-sus have been regional foci of the Foundation’s international funding for the past 15 years. The initiative “Between Europe and the Orient” was introduced in 2000 with a twofold objective: on the one hand, it aimed to stimulate interest within the German academic community to con-duct research into Central Asia and the Caucasus; on the other hand, it was to provide active support for research and higher education in the region. Having provided widespread support for coope-rative projects in (and on) the region, the funding initiative was redesigned in 2012 and has since

focused on thematic calls addressing “Environ-ment, Natural Resources, and Renewable Ener-gies” (2013/14) as well as “State, Economy, Law” (2014/15). In future, the initiative remains open for structurally oriented measures aiming at further train ing of young researchers, the reintegration of scientists and scholars who wish to return to their home countries, or the expansion of academic infrastructure in the target region.

With its second large regionally focused funding initiative “Knowledge for Tomorrow – Coopera-tive Research Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa”, the Foundation seeks to provide career opportunities for young researchers based on the African con-tinent. Therefore, the Foundation has pursued a three-stage career model that enables young African academics to work at home institutions in the long term. Having started with opportunities to complete Ph.D. degrees as part of cooperative research projects, the Foundation currently funds postdoctoral fellowships. Recent calls concentra-ted specifically on the social sciences, the huma-nities, and livelihood management, following previous allocations of funding in the engineering sciences and for thematic areas such as “Natural Resources” and “Neglected Tropical Diseases and Related Public Health Research”. If junior postdocs have successfully conducted their projects, they

Cooperative Research

on the Arab Region:

Marie-Christine

Heinze from the

Institute of Oriental

and Asian Studies

in Bonn contributes

to research on the

behavior of protest

groups in Yemen and

the strategies they

have developed.

What effect do

combat missions and

traumatic experiences

have on the mental

health of soldiers? Is

it possible to mitigate

consequences like

aggressive behavior?

A project coordinated

by researchers of

the University of

Constance focuses on

soldiers in Burundi.

Here, psychologist

Cynthia Nishimwe

with Therence

Miburo, who was

involved in the

African Union Mission

in Somalia.


to researchers from all disciplines, i.e. natural, life and engineering sciences as well as the humani-ties and social sciences.

Opening up Research in Germany and Harvesting International Knowledge

In recent years, what has come to be termed the “digitalization” of society has led to fundamental social, political, and economic changes. The “digi-tal revolution” has also had significant effects on social research, as the development and usage of new media devices and technologies has genera-ted an abundance of data about human behavior. On the one hand, this opens up new opportunities for social science research; on the other hand, it also involves methodological and methodical chal-lenges. These new developments offer an exten- sive breadth of potential research questions within the thematic field of the “Computational Social Sciences”, the exploration of which the Foundation encourages with its call in this area. Elsewhere, such as in the US, the UK, and parts of Asia, the field of Computational Social Sciences has already been established in academia, and social phenomena have been explored using com-putational approaches. In Germany, by compar-ison, this area has received less attention and is somewhat less developed. Against this backdrop, the Foundation intends to support the further advancement of this field in Germany, among other things by supporting the development of international networks. In addition, it promotes and finances the further training of junior resear-chers – from the level of master’s to postdoc.

Thriving for Cooperation in Symmetric Partnerships The Foundation considers the idea of cooperation amongst equals – or in “symmetric partnership” – to be the guiding principle of all projects involving an international collaboration. Research conduc-ted in transboundary and intercultural settings with partners from developing countries requires

“Designing and building your own laboratory equipment”

was the title of a workshop held at the University of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia,

in May 2015. Based on a free and open source software/hardware model, 20 researchers

from all over Africa learnt how to use modern 3D printing technology in combination

with basic programming skills to make their own equipment. The organizers André Maia

Chagas and Dr. Tom Baden are based in Germany at the University of Tübingen.

can then continue as senior postdocs in the sub-sequent third phase of this program.

Another firmly established funding initiative with a regional focus is the program “Post doctoral Fellowships in the Humanities at Universi-ties and Research Institutes in the U.S. and Germany”, which aims at strengthening trans-atlantic research relations in the humanities. Ini-tially established to offer stays to German fellows at Harvard University, the program has been extended to include a number of other renowned institutions in the USA. In 2012, a reciprocal dimension was added with the financial support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which has since allowed American postdocs to embark on a one-year research stay in Germany.

In light of the events in North African and Arab countries that started in 2011, the Foundation has complemented its long-term regional engage-

ment: It speedily initiated a call for research pro-jects to accompany the ongoing political develop-ments in the region. Subsequently, two more calls for multilateral-cooperative research projects on the Arab World were issued, one concentrating on “State, Society, and Economy in Change” (2013), the other one on “Experience of Violence, Trauma Relief, and Commemorative Culture” (2015).

Against the background of the current conflict between Ukraine, Russia, and the EU, the one-off call “Trilateral Partnerships – Cooperation Projects between Scholars and Scientists from Ukraine, Russia and Germany”, published in December 2014, was intended to strengthen cross-border cooperation between scholars, scientists, and academic institutions from all three countries. Thereby, the Foundation aimed to contribute to building rapprochement, confidence, and under-standing in the region and to maintain a dialogue with colleagues in Germany. The call was open

equitable cooperation. By defining thematic issues and designing the instrumental framework of its international grantmaking in an interactive process involving the respective communities, the Foundation has pursued this goal right from the start. This very much aligns itself with the KFPE Principles for Research in Partnership (www.kfpe.ch/11-Principles), which the Foundation recom-mends to adopt.

International Collaborations among Foundations When pursuing objectives on an international scale, collaborating with other funders is of uttermost importance. Therefore, the Foundation strives to strengthen existing partnerships and to develop new ones to leverage synergies and join forces, learn from each other, and – last, not least – ensure a significantly higher sustainabili-ty of funding. Examples of existing partnerships are the European Foundation Initiative for Afri-can Research into Neglected Tropical Diseases and the funding initiative “Europe and Global Challenges”, which is run jointly with several European foundations.

Information and Contact Applicants should first obtain updates on the Foundation’s funding portfolio before submitting proposals. For each funding initiative, the “Infor-mation for Applicants” provides detailed informa-tion on the respective scheme, its objectives, and the pertinent requirements.

Please visit our website under www.volkswagenstiftung.de. If you have any questions after reading the “Information for Applicants”, the program director respon-sible for the particular funding initiative will be glad to assist.

http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de


Examples of FUNDING

Semi-nomadic herders in Kyrgyzstan are confronted

with increasingly hard conditions. ➔


Spotlight on PROJECTS

Kyrgyz herders leading

their sheep from the

summer pastures in

Suusamyr valley back

to the pastures near

their villages. – Yurts

and stands along the

highway Bishkek-Osh

where the herders sell

their dairy products.

For the first time in living memory, Mongolia experienced three consecutive dzuds during the winters of 1999, 2000, and 2001, resulting in high livestock losses for nomadic households. The economic and social consequences of these specific snow and cold catastrophes were so severe that the UN issued an international appeal for help. Dzuds are a frequent occurrence in Mongolia: They result from dry summers with low yields of hay, and extremely cold winters with heavy snowfall so that the animals starve to death or are killed by frost.

Over the past fifteen years Central Asia has been increasingly affected by extreme weather conditions: Long cold winters follow hot summers. The conditions for animal husbandry are becoming more and more difficult. For the animals – herds of goats, sheep, cattle, horses, and camels – there is sometimes insufficient grazing, sometimes not enough water. How do herder households cope with the shocks triggered by such climatic factors that threaten their livelihoods?

This is the pivotal question posed by the interdisciplinary and international team of researchers working on a project supported in the Foundation’s funding initiative “Between Europe and the Orient – A Focus on Research and Higher Education in/on Central Asia and the Caucasus”. Under the project title “Herders Coping with Hazards in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia: A New Research Approach Based on GPStracking” researchers from Germany, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia are joining to build academic bridges between Europe and Asia, and between disciplines that normally rarely converge.

Towards a Safer, Sustainable Future on Pasture Lands Cooperating with colleagues in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, German researchers are investigating the effects of natural hazards and how to mitigate the consequences for herders.



The semi-nomadic herders in Kyrgyzstan are also confronted by increasingly tough conditions: In the mountainous regions, shrinking glaciers are causing herders to experience floods in winter and droughts in summer. Other extreme weather events, landslides, avalanches, and broken infrastructure are continually reducing the rangeland available for their animals, which results in the overgrazing and degradation of pastures around settlements. In these respects the herders are faced with similar conditions as in Mongolia, although the causes are somewhat dissimilar.

The research project addresses quite different aspects: On the one hand, by shedding light on

the ramifications of climate change for developing and transformation economies the project team is focusing on one of the most major issues affecting all of mankind. On the other hand, they are investigating the concrete consequences of weather shocks for individual Central Asian households. For many, the loss of their livelihoods through the death of their livestock leads to migration from the steppe to the slum belts surrounding major cities.

To come back to Mongolia: “In recent years, natural disasters happened very often, people died, and many herders lost most or all of their livestock. In the past 20 years, more than 100,000 herders became refugees as result of natural disasters and moved from rural areas to urban areas”, says Dr. Myagmartseren Purevtseren, a project partner from the National University of Mongolia (NUM). The result: 50 percent of the total population of Mongolia lives in the capital Ulaanbaatar, which now has as many inhabitants as Hamburg or Munich. More than half of them, though, are living in yurts around the outskirts of the city – without running water, elec

tricity, or sanitation. Having lost their source of income they are completely impoverished – with all the attending consequences that slum living brings with it. This is one of the scenarios that project leader Dr. Kati Krähnert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) wants to focus on. She wants to analyze precisely under what circumstances the nomadic people in Central Asia are forced to abandon their traditional way of life in the wake of weather shocks.

“Animal husbandry accounts for less than 15 percent of the country’s GDP”, says Kati Krähnert, “a closer look, though, reveals that the majority of Mongolians depend on it in one way or another”. Because of the extreme continental climate, farming as we know it is limited and the people have to depend more or less exclusively on livestock breeding as their source of sustenance. This phenomenon is not restricted to Central Asia, but it serves as an illustrative example for other regions like the Sahel. Taken to its logical conclusion, “in the long term, of course, climate induced migration is likely to affect us in Europe, too”, says the economist.

Based on what they will learn over the next three years by pooling their respective expertise – from the fields of geoinformatics, development economics, spatial statistics, and geography – the researchers will be making a contribution

towards preventing migration to urban centers and helping the herders maintain their traditional way of life. Kyrgyz partner Dr. Akylbek Chymyrov, Head of Department “Geodesy and Geoinformatics” at the Kyrgyz State University of Construction, Transport, and Architecture (KSUCTA), emphasizes: “I hope the project findings will contribute significantly to understanding how pasture management, natural hazards, and climate change affect the livestock industry.”

One point of departure for the present project is the cooperation between Kati Krähnert and her Mongolian colleagues that has been functioning smoothly for some time now: “Over the past

The herders offer

Kumis, fermented

mares’ milk, and acco-

modation in a yurt

or wagon to drivers

and tourists. Below:

Project coordinator

Dr. Kathi Krähnert

(left) and her team

at DIW in Berlin

(Dr. Johannes Rieck-

mann, Martina Kraus

and Kerstin Ringelhan)

are supporting the

survey design.

Adilet Bekturov, Ph.D. student, Dr. Ulanbek Shekerbekov,

and project manager Prof. Dr. Akylbek Chymyrov

(all from KSUCTA) check survey maps and discuss the

questionnaire with Shamsia Ibragimova, director of

“Soceconic”, a center for socio-economic studies.

Livestock owners

Damira Soodanbeko-

va (left) and Kalbai

Abdiev (right) are

being interviewed

by the researchers

in front of a summer

shelter; Kurut balls

made from dried

yoghurt are prepared

on the porch.



the first time they are carrying out such a longterm monitoring exercise over large distances in complex landscapes.

The data will be collected over 12 mounths and help the team answer a number of quite different questions: How often do the households change their location? How far do they travel all told? How do they find their way through the rugged landscape? Both countries are characterized by mountain ranges, with high steppes, alpine meadows and pastures: A highly complex landscape structure determining the nomads’ travel routes and where they are able to stay. This is where the expertise of the project partners from Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan comes into its own: Myagmartseren Purevtseren from NUM is a geographer, and Akylbek Chymyrov from KSUCTA is a carto grapher. Both are specialists for satellite data – and their countries’ land rights.

“The combination of different expert knowledge is one of the things that makes the project stand out”, says Kati Krähnert. “In our methodology we may be more sophisticated than our colleagues in Asia; but they have the superior expertise when it comes to knowledge of the complex land rights. This allows us to formulate the right questions for the surveys. Together, we are confident that by bridging the borders between cultures, technologies, and people we will be able to make a tangible contribution towards sustainable development in Asia”.

Jo Schilling

few years we have carried out regular surveys of rural households. The findings clearly show how severe weather shocks – like the especially extreme winter conditions in 2010 which led to the loss of around 24 percent of the country’s entire livestock – impact on the lives of families”. Encompassing a total of 800 households, such surveys form the basis for research also in the current cooperation project.

What do we already know about the specific living conditions of the herders, and what questions still remain to be answered? In Mongolia the people live as nomads the year round, whereas

those in Kyrgyzstan are seminomadic, wandering between summer and winter quarters. The migration routes and rangelands have been passed down within the family through the generations. The herders must have access to rivers or other sources of water, and the pasture quality varies, as do the locations where they erect their yurts. Good grass and sheltered campgrounds are valued highly – at least, so the researchers believe. They do not yet know precisely how crucial the individual factors might be. Nor do they know why some families move the location of their yurts up to 25 times a year, simply to put them up again quite nearby, while other

Collecting data for

livelihood security:

Adilet Bekturov

(right) is going

through the question-

naire with herder

Urmat Abdiev. His

family’s horses also

graze in the

Suusamyr region.

Dr. Myagmartseren

Purevtseren and

Munkhnaran Sugar,

MSc, of the Mon-

golian team asking

household elder Luv-

santseren to partici-

pate in the survey.

Pastures near the capi-

tal city Ulaanbaatar,

which is to be seen in

the background: The

researchers from the

National University of

Mongolia are testing

the GPS loggers before

the field survey starts.

families do so more seldom, although they then move greater distances. Is their behavior perhaps connected with some form of inheritance rights? Does experience and local knowledge play the decisive role? Or is maybe a higher appetite for risk the main factor?

Here you can appreciate the fine line the researchers have to tread: “It’s extremely difficult for us to find out how, when, and over which distance a nomad household moves: This is because our questions harbor European concepts of what is movement”, explains Professor Dr. Edzer Pebesma, who leads the “SpatioTemporal Modelling Lab” at the University of Münster’s Institute for Geoinformatics. “We express movement and distances in miles, time in hours and days. Nomads think of distances in other terms, as well as the time it takes to cover them, and the periods they stay somewhere: They therefore apply other criteria when developing strategies against the threat of weather shocks”.

The project partners in Münster are experts on conceptions of movement in space. They want to overcome the aforementioned cultural hurdles with the aid of GPS technology. The plan: The yurts of each of the 800 households taking part in the surveys in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan are equipped with GPS loggers. On the one hand, this amounts to a sociocultural challenge: Will the reserchers be able to explain to the herders in question what modern GPS technology is, and why they want to use it? On the other hand, it presents a technical challenge: This is



500 Years of Periphery Is EnoughThe world needs emerging powers like Brazil to contribute new ideas to deal with global challenges – like implementing the responsibility to protect populations from genocide and other mass atrocities.

When Oliver Stuenkel opens the window of his office in the Avenida Paulista he lets in the pulsating roar of one of São Paulo’s main traffic arteries. The Fundação Getúlio Vargas, the pri-vate university where the 34-year-old political scientist is Assistant Professor for International Relations and coordinator of the School of History and Social Sciences, is located in the heart of the finance and business center of the Brazilian city with its twelve million inhabitants. São Paulo is one of the most important industrial agglomera-tions in South America. Altogether, with a couple of brief interruptions Stuenkel has spent nine years in Brazil. With a smile he says, “By now I know my way around here almost better than in Germany. After such a long time I have a good idea about what makes the Brazilians tick”.

Over the past few years, Stuenkel has been an informed observer of how Brazil has become a factor to reckon with in foreign policy, joining the big players of the northern hemisphere. His expertise is reflected in a recently completed international cooperation project bearing the title “Global Norm Evolution and the Responsi-

Peking and São Paulo investigated how so-called “rising” and “established” powers – Brazil, China, India, South Africa, Europe and the US – engaged with the Responsibility to Protect since its estab-lishment in 2005. “It was interesting in this respect to determine the main driving forces behind different interpretations of the Responsi-bility to Protect in the countries investigated, and to identify the various coalitions that emerged to promote the norm on the global level”, explains Thorsten Benner, director of GPPi, who served as one of the project coordinators.

The core of the empirical project comprised almost 400 in-depth interviews with politicians and diplomats, inquiring into the different opin-ions, attitudes, and visions for the future voiced in the various countries concerned. The initial results have already appeared, with further pub-lications to follow.

The Volkswagen Foundation supported the pro-ject within the context of the funding initiative “Europe and Global Challenges”. This program brings together researchers in the humanities and social sciences in Europe and Germany with partners in emerging countries. The idea is to explore – ideally in multinational teams such as the one coordinated by GPPi – suitable concepts

Brasilian President

Dilma Rousseff

addressing the 70th

United Nations Gene-

ral Assembly in 2015.

Already her precursor

da Silva promoted a

more active role of

Brasil in global foreign

policy.

At the start of discus-

sions: GPPi director

Thorsten Benner

(right) with Michael

Zürn, director at WZB,

during the inaugural

workshop of the R2P

project in Berlin.

for tackling international conflicts and global challenges like climate change and food securi-ty. Bundling the various perspectives on these issues gives a multifaceted picture and reveals new approaches towards resolving the problems: Multiplicity acting as the catalyst for innovative solutions.

“A problem encountered in research projects deal-ing with such a complex topic is that the Euro-pean actors often believe their views are crucial. They tend only to make use of the specific knowl-edge of their colleagues in the emerging econo-mies and developing countries, and not to involve them in the research process on an equal footing”, says Dr. Wolfgang Levermann, programm director at the Volkswagen Foundation. Overcoming such post-colonial attitudes is one of the aims of the funding initiative. Another major objective pur-sued by the Foundation is, “that the researchers involved reach beyond the academic realm and produce policy papers that address stakeholders.” It goes without saying that another result should be the creation of stable international networks with a view to assisting future projects and ben-efitting young researchers. With this particular end in mind, project workshops involving every participant, both junior and senior, were held in Berlin, Frankfurt, Oxford and Budapest.

bility to Protect”. Together with his colleagues Matias Spektor and Marcos Tourinho, Stuenkel led the Brazilian contributions to a series of pub-lications on Brazilian foreign policy, the military intervention in Libya 2011 and the subsequent international debate about a high-profile Brazil-ian proposal for “responsibility while protecting”.

The political scientist, who is also a non-resident fellow with the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin where the overall project was anchored, goes on to explain: “Until former pres-ident Luiz Inácio da Silva came into power, Brazil didn‘t play much of a role in active foreign policy – that is, showing an interest in resolving inter-national conflicts and issues beyond economics and trade relations.” Therefore, Brazilian univer-sities need experts on International Relations like Stuenkel, who speaks nine languages and received his academic training in Spain, the USA and Germany, to build up what is still a relatively young field.

The project “Global Norm Evolution and the Responsibility to Protect” analyzed how the so-called BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) challenge and thus reshape the international community’s “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). When the UN adopted R2P in 2005, a decade after the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, governments across the globe com-mitted themselves to protect populations from atrocities like genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.

Coordinated by GPPi, seven research teams encompassing a total of 18 scholars based in Ber-lin, Budapest, Oxford, Delhi, Frankfurt am Main,



Oliver Stuenkel and Matias Spektor turned out to be the ideal choice to lead the Brazilian leg of the project, which also involved a doctoral student, and two research assistants. Here, it should be pointed out that apart from teaching subjects like the social sciences, history, and law, the Fundação Getúlio Vargas also enjoys a reputation as a think tank: Stuenkel and his colleagues are therefore extremely well networked, knowing personally and acting as advisors to a number of Brazilian politicians, diplomats, and NGO deci-sion makers on matters concerning international relations. Top Brazilian politicians and officials (including the foreign minister) are frequent visitors to the university. Naturally, the students benefit greatly from such proximity to the prac-tice. “Over the past few years the number of students enrolling for international relations has risen considerably”, says Stuenkel. He sees this as additional indication of a changing awareness for

Brazil’s place in the international order; not only on the part of politics, but also in society as a whole.

A couple of years ago Stuenkel belonged to the Brazilian delegation that put finishing touches to preparations for the fourth and fifth meetings of the BRICS countries. He thinks that Brazil is a particularly good example of an up and coming country that wants to play a greater role in shap-ing foreign policy. Due to its own colonial history, the multiculturality brought about by immi-grants from all parts of the world, and not least as result of its position as the world’s seventh biggest economy, Brazil has diverse links to other continents. Brazil could use this to its advantage in the international arena.

Stuenkel gives some examples: “Largely unno-ticed by the general public, Brazil also mediated

in the nuclear debate with Iran. This came about because of the stable relations it had for decades maintained with Iran”. Brazil’s foreign policy role was somewhat more prominent during the Arab spring. Under the presidency of Dilma Rousseff – in 2011 as member of the United Nations Security Council – Brazil as well as Ger-many abstained from voting for the motion to take military action against Libya. A short while later, the president addressed the UN General Assembly, saying: “A lot is said about responsibil-ity to protect, but we hear precious little about responsibility while protecting. These are con-cepts we must develop together”. She was not merely paying lip-service to the matter at hand: Shortly afterwards, Brazil submitted to the UN Security Council a concept proposal developed by diplomats and foreign policy actors bearing the title “Responsibility While Protecting: Ele-ments for the Development and Promotion of a Concept”. The RWP paper caused quite a stir – and considerable annoyance; for up to that occasion such initiatives and position papers had been the undisputed prerogative of the Western powers.

According to the RWP concept paper: “There is a growing awareness that the concept of responsi-bility for protection could be misused for purpos-es other than the protection of civilian popula-tions, in the same way that regime change could be misused. In view of this, it becomes even more difficult to attain the protection goals pursued

by the international community”, a reference to Libya, which could apply equally well to the crisis-torn region of Syria. Among other things, Brazil pleaded to refrain from military inter-vention, and proposed that the Security Council should contemplate an improved procedure for monitoring the interpretation and execution of mandates. However, clearly unnerved by the ensuing protest, Brazil has made no attempt to pursue further development of the RWP paper. The deep economic and political crisis of the recent past has not helped either. Still, it is clear that “Brazil is no longer prepared to remain on the sidelines”, summarizes Oliver Stuenkel.

At the end of the 1990s, the Brazilian social scientist Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães published a book titled “500 Years of Periphery” outlining the political positioning of his country. If left up to the current government and its academic advisors, though, this state of affairs will very soon be over.

The faculty of interna-

tional relations at FGV

were frequently invi-

ted by Oliver Stuenkel

(right) and Professor

Matias Spektor (left)

to participate in

discussions about the

project: Vinícius Rod-

rigues Vieira, Marcos

Tourinho, José Hen-

rique Bortoluci, and

Guilherme Casarões

(from left).

Oliver Stuenkel (right)

and his colleagues

Allan Greicon Mace-

do Lima and Marcos

Tourinho (from left) at

the Fundação Getulio

Vargas (FGV).

For further information on project results please visit:

• www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/globalnorm

Mareike Knoke

http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/globalnorm

26



the population lives below the poverty threshold still tries to put climate mitigation policies into practice. As one of nine senior scientists engaged in the project “Climate Change Mitigation and Poverty Reduction” (CliMiP), Rennkamp contributes to investigating the institutional change linked with such political processes – in South Africa, Mexico, Thailand and Indonesia.

In Germany, the mention of climate mitigation immediately calls to mind technology like solar cells or wind farms. Of course it is not a bad thing when industrial nations make increasing use of renewable energies. At the global level, though, the fixation on technical solutions to the problem falls short. According to Prof. Dr. Jann Lay, leader of the research project started in 2013 and an economist at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, “The debate is void of a development perspective”. He therefore finds it gratifying that other researchers from emerging economies are given the opportunity to bring their expertise into the project.

In the world’s emerging economies, millions of people are desperately striving to work their way out of poverty. The ensuing economic growth in these countries, though, leads to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Whether or not these emissions can be dampened will be crucial to the success of global climate change mitigation in the 21st century. Therefore, the cardinal question is: Can climate change mitigation go hand in hand with the fight against poverty and made to become a winwin situation? Many experts believe that climate change mitigation can be achieved more costefficiently in emerging economies than in the industrial nations.

What’s it like living in a country where the power is down for two or three hours every day of the week? Britta Rennkamp has learned to come to terms with the power cuts which are commonplace in South Africa. “At least you can get early warning on the Internet”, says the German political scientist who works at the University of Cape Town’s Energy Research Center. South Africa is currently faced with a severe energy crisis – but in spite of this, the country where 39 percent of

An Insoluble Dilemma? On their way towards a modest level of affluence, countries of the global South are producing growing amounts of greenhouse gases. Politics, industry, and science have to tackle a number of major tasks.

How do matters

stand with alternative

energy in small

Thai communities?

Kridtiyaporn Wongsa

meets with experts at

a hydropower plant

and a waste-

com bustion facility

in Chiang Mai Province.



28

same time, their emissions of greenhouse gases are soaring. “Studies on this topic tend to focus on China or India, completely overlooking other countries in similar stages of development – we want to complete the story”, says Lay. The project group also extended their analysis to include a case study based on Indonesia. The aim of this was to shed light on the social consequences of removing subsidies on fossil fuels. Lay reports that initial research findings show an increase in the price of liquefied gas would cause difficulty to poorer members of the population. Fishermen

and the owners of traditional hotfood stalls would be particularly hard hit.

In Thailand the project focuses on the political factors in detail and the consequences of climate change mitigation for poorer sectors of the economy. In general, climate governance is less prioritized. Both an impediment to and an evidence of the rather passive attitude is the delay in enactment of the Thailand National Master Plan on Climate Change, having been prepared and revised several times since 2007 and not in

and representatives of the cement and steel industries and the mining sector, all of whom feared loss of earnings as a result of the new tax. Therefore, according to the Mexican project partner, the law has remained something of a toothless tiger.

The aim of CliMiP is to shift the focus from narrow definitions of climate change mitigation policy to encompass the economic consequences. For instance, the researchers carry out opinion surveys to find out how consumers would react to price increases caused by measures of climate change mitigation. They then go on to examine how different consumer groups would be affected: For example, rich and poor sections of the population. The researchers selected Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand for their study because these countries are undergoing particularly rapid economic development. At the

Wouldn’t that put a damper on economic growth, though? Working in cooperation with a team including international economists and political scientists, Lay is seeking to find answers to questions like these.

According to Rennkamp, there is currently a public debate in South Africa surrounding several variants of a proposed carbon tax. Maybe this could really develop into a winwin situation: For instance, if the tax revenues were not simply to disappear into the public coffers but were instead used to subsidize the electricity bills of poor households. “Nothing has been decided yet, though”, says our political scientist.

In another of the countries in the focus of CliMiP, progress has been faster: Mexico introduced a carbon tax in 2014. This, however, met with fierce opposition from trade associations

How would people

like the owner of the

mobile food stand

and the moped rider

cope with measures

for climate mitigation

causing higher prices

for gas and gasoline?

The flower grower uses

coconut rims instead

of soil to keep the

humidity level of the

flower bulbs he plan-

ted – thus giving an

example of recycling

agricultural waste.

Top right: Talking to a

rice farmer the young

researcher wants to

find out how a rene-

wable energy program

would affect the prac-

tices and the state of

welfare in the

agricultural sector.



see if they might be able to utilize it for biogas production or as natural fertilizers.

Wongsa has experience of cooperation with Asian colleagues – from Japan, for instance – in earlier projects. This is the first time, though, that she has worked with experts from other parts of the world; in this case from Mexico and South Africa. She finds these new perspectives rewarding, not only regarding the novel research methods she got to know. She appreciates the comparative aspect: “The cultural, social, and political contexts are different, and this is reflected in the different aspects of political decisionmaking processes”.

The CliMiP project is an excellent example of the global approach and the networked research fostered by the Foundation’s funding initiative “Europe and Global Challenges”. The specific research focus and the respective societal challenges require a crossborder approach. The main contribution of the European experts working in

the project is to explore how Europe can have a share in resolving the problems of the countries involved. Jann Lay sums up: “Three aspects are crucial to the success of climate change mitigation, and these therefore also form the focus of CliMiP: First, negotiations on climate change mitigation on the global level; second, climate policy on the national level; and third, the specific technical and economic implementation. We expect the final project results will influence the global debate on climate change mitigation, development, and justice – as well as the shape of political solutions.”

Sven Titz

Similar to South Africa, Thailand has to face the challenge of securing its supply of energy. In 2014 it had to import 85.19 percent of the crude oil needed. In attempt to shift to cleaner energy, Thailand increases its dependence on domestic natural gas. But at the current rate of production it is estimated that these natural gas reserves will last only six years counting from 2014. There is a need for new sources of clean renewable energy. Wongsa is investigating how small community projects contribute to the desired winwin solution regarding energy security, climate mitigation, and most importantly poverty reduction. She interviews villagers about their experiences with small hydropower plants and local wastetoenergy management. The results are documented and analyzed to assess the prospects and the impact of such projects. The young researcher also examines the agricultural sector: She talks to farmers about the option of organic farming to reduce the use of fertilizers, a source of a greenhouse gas. And she asks, for example, how they manage their biomass – in order to

For further information on the project please visit:

• www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/climatechange

action yet. According to Kridtiyaporn Wongsa, the cooperation partner working at the Public Policy Studies Institute in Chiang Mai, the delay can be traced partly to the institutional structure in the Thai climate governance. The key actor, the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP), is the national focal climate point and as such responsible for preparing the plan. “The bureaucratic procedures there can be very complex and complicated, to the extent that it impedes the completion of the plan”, says Wongsa. That may not have been the case if rather more dynamic agencies in the field, the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization and the Ministry for Energy had shared the direct responsibility over national climate policy and planning. That, at least, is one conclusion drawn from the first analysis of the political networks by the CliMiP researchers. Wongsa and her colleagues want to find out more about how decisions relevant for climate change mitigation come about, and the shortcomings inherent to such processes.

Research Associate

Kridtiyaporn Wongsa

(left) is a member

of the team around

Prof. Dr. Mingsarn

Kaosa – ard (right),

Director of PPSI at

Chiang Mai University’s

Faculty of Economics,

who also supervises

her contribution to the

CliMiP project. The two

other Thai participants,

Professor Anan

Wattanakuljarus and

Ph.D. student Supawan

Saelim, are based

at Bangkok.

At the German Insti-

tute of Global and

Area Studies in Ham-

burg Prof. Dr. Jann

Lay, research fellow

Sebastian Renner,

and Dr. Miriam Prys

(from left) play their

part in making the

globally spread pro-

ject a success.

http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/climatechange



The building of a NTD network started with the Africa Initiative of the Volkswagen Founda-tion in 2005, which amongst others also focusses on tropical medicine. Working in cooperation with four European partners (Nuffield Founda-tion, Foundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Founda-tion Merieux , Fondazione Cariplo), in 2007 the Volkswagen Foundation initiated a program called the European Foundation Initiative for African Research in Neglected Tropical Diseases (EFINTD). The central objective was to promote African researchers in different stages of their career and provide incentives for them to work at institutes within their home universities. Over the five-year course of the project, the program allocated 4.5 million euros to fund 23 postdocs and six scholarships for research stays. Towards the end of the funding period, at the request of

the African researchers, the foundations devel-oped a strategy to con solidate and expand on the successful capacity building experience.

“The African Research Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases is the result of this, and we are working hard on it”, says Dr. Amuasi and sums up the main objectives: To strengthen coopera-tion and the exchange of ideas among African researchers, to promote young researchers by improving academic training at their home uni-versities, and to build up sustainable structures that will enable African researchers to inde-pendently acquire third-party funding. The Euro-pean Foundation Initiative for African Research into the Neglected Tropical Diseases is providing 500,000 euros up to 2019 to support John Amuasi build up the network.

Filariasis, a parasitic disease where worms get under the skin; joint pains and swelling of the lymph nodes resulting from trypanosomiasis, the sleeping sickness; severe damage to internal organs caused by schistosomiasis – frightening tropical diseases affect mainly the poorest of the poor all over the world. The Ghanaian health researcher Dr. John Amuasi knows this only too well. “You just have to look around”, he says, “Dis-eases like these are commonplace and make life difficult, especially for needy persons in Africa.” Almost a billion people worldwide suffer from a neglected tropical disease (NTD) of one kind or another. Although treatment is available for some of them, in many cases there still is no hope for patients. “Because they are poor, there is no

market incentive for research into better health products like drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines or better delivery mechanisms for those remedies that already exist,” says Amuasi.

Already many years ago he decided to contrib-ute towards changing the status quo. Amuasi has been actively involved in efforts to promote NTD research since he was a young medical stu-dent: He was part of the launch of the Doctors Without Borders’ Drugs for Neglected Diseases Working Group, and later worked closely with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. As a senior research fellow at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), in 2014 Amuasi was appointed the first executive director of the African Research Net-work for Neglected Tropical Diseases (ARNTD). The main focus of this network is to support evi-dence-based control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases from Africa by empowering cur-rent and future generations of African research-ers. This includes efforts to ensure that research findings are actually implemented and that help arrives where it is needed most – the people affected by disease. Being responsible for build-ing up the network, John Amuasi interacts with health researchers and policy makers especially in Africa and internationally, drawing from his vital connections built over the years. For exam-ple, in 2015 he was a panellist alongside the Min-ister of Health of the Philippines at the Council on Health Research and Development colloquium on health research fairness in London. He also met with a member of the network in the Dem-ocratic Republic of Congo where they discussed strategies to improve the involvement of franco-phone researchers in the network.

A Network for HealthThe African Research Network on Neglected Tropical Diseases ARNTD focuses on creating a sustainable environment for urgently needed research.

For winning the fight

against NTDs the

availability of the apt

drugs is vital. Here

John Amuasi talks to a

pharmacist in Kumasi.

ARNTD’s first

executive director,

Dr. John Amuasi,

is confident that

the network will

substantially con

tribute to enhancing

the life of many

people in Africa.



Taking information

on NTD research to

the communities

ensures their partici

pation and confirms

that their voice is

heard and acted upon.

those suffering.” A classic example of this diffi-culty was the effort in several malaria endemic countries to introduce artemisinin-based combi-nation therapy (ACT), a new medication against uncomplicated malaria that works better than the older medicines. Although ACT was officially recommended by the World Health Organization and the health ministries in several countries, it was largely ignored by doctors and patients. “The problem was that the older medicines were still available”, explains Dr. John Amuasi. “Doctors

Most of the researchers currently active in ARNTD are former holders of scholarships under the EFINTD funding program. “The long-term target is to expand the circle of members to include additional African experts on NTDs, as well as policy makers, doctors, pharmacists, and other health workers”, says John Amuasi. “There has always been a wide gap between health research findings and policy making, which makes it difficult to translate important results into intervention and implementation and help

For information on ARNTD please visit: arntd.org

Networking also means trave

ling: Dr. Amuasi departing for

the airport to attend the con

ference on Country Leadership

and Collaboration on NTDs

held in London in June 2015.

and patients alike simply continued using the medications they were accustomed to, although they were not so effective. There was a need for some intervention to remedy the situation and some political action would have been useful. – How ever engaging with politics is something researchers are generally not very good at.”

Beside availability, one of the success factors when introducing new medications is of course price. Dr. John Amuasi has carried out a number of studies in this area, and this was also the focus of his doctoral thesis submitted to the Univer-sity of Minnesota School of Public Health, USA, in Health Services Research, Policy and Admin-istration. Dr. Amuasi’s experience in the global health arena has made him value the importance of winning over key actors. “It was support from the former US President’s ‘Carter Center’ which contributed to almost eliminating the guinea worm”, says Amuasi. “If we are able to achieve a high level of visibility for ARNTD it should be possible to gain many more important support-ers.” Several important steps have already been taken. For example, the ARNTD representative at the Pre-G7 Summit Conference in Germany managed to present the network’s concept to an audience of high-ranking politicians, including

the German Chancellor. And the former Presi-dent of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor, who is already promoting international awareness of NTDs is being approached by the ARNTD to use his global influence to support the work of the deve loping network.

Dr. John Amuasi and his colleagues have drawn up an action plan with the objective of being able to have a fully viable and vibrant ARNTD by 2019. Besides nurturing relationships with sponsors and ongoing efforts to boost NTD research in Africa, they intend to develop communication channels so that scientific findings will become more readily available to all involved. This in clu-des community briefings and information dis-semination sessions as well as press releases and policy briefs, newsletters, and patient brochures. “Our dream is that one day people will no longer have to suffer from diseases for which there is no adequate treatment. That’s a goal truly worth fighting for.”

Melanie Gärtner

http://arntd.org


Interview

In close cooperation with international partners, Professor Ravi Ahuja from Göttingen University has initiated “A Global Network for Global History” which focuses on a southern perspective. Beate Reinhold interviewed him about this project and the importance of reaching beyond set research spaces in historical science.

Professor Ahuja, you and your colleagues successfully submitted a research proposal in the frame of “Off the Beaten Track”, a program noted for its exceptionally high aspirations. In what way do you personally think your project stands out by breaking new ground?

Ahuja: Well, research in the area of global history is in itself certainly nothing new: It has become quite a popular research field in many countries, especially in the North Atlantic region. New is the focus on the “southern world” and the pro-ject’s approach in respect of researching glob-al-historical topics in close cooperation with partners in the Global South.

How is this reflected in the project design? How do you ensure the objectives are met?

Ahuja: The initiative was conceived in the North Atlantic region by institutes with consid-erable experience of research in this field – Har-vard, Amsterdam, and here in Göttingen – but our network partners are located in the south-ern world, namely in Dakar, Sao Pãulo, Shanghai and New Delhi. That’s what’s so special about the project – the fact that the main hubs lie out-side the North Atlantic region. This means that the fellows of the program are given the oppor-

tunity to become acquainted with research approaches in other regions of the world which are highly active and generate novel perspectives.

To what extent are these cooperation partners free to leave their own mark?

Ahuja: Here, we also have a different approach. More often than not, it is the financially strong science locations of the North that decide on the research topic. Once this has been done, they then set about searching for suitable partners in the southern world who are seen fit to carry out the previously determined research program. In contrast to this, we simply stake out the overall framework: How to proceed within this general scope is then discussed together with our partners.

How far have you progressed in this so far? Have some initial topics already emerged?

Ahuja: It’s only a short while since we re ceived confirmation of funding, we are still in the initial stages of discussion and planning our first topic workshop. As to be expected, the project par-ticipants have articulated different preferences. A large thematic field that interests everyone, though, is the history of labor. The partners in Brazil, India, Senegal, Amsterdam, as well as in Harvard and Göttingen, have already done a lot in this area. It represents a field in which global relations are very much in play. One immediately thinks of the migration flows which have grown so much since the 19th century and linked parts of the world closely together. I expect this will in one way or another find a place in our research.

Replacing the Yardstick and Changing Perspective “ To overcome methodological nationalism means to ensure that the determination of the space of relevance becomes part of every new research project.”

Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja directs the research group “Modern Indian History” at the Georg-August-Uni versität Göttingen. He has worked on various aspects of India’s social history from the 18th to the 20th century including e.g. urban history, and the social history of war. Current projects examine the social history of South Asian seafarers and the emergence of a labor-centered social policy in mid-20th century India. He is coeditor of the International Review of Social History and the Journal of Global History.

To return to what makes the project exceptional – viewing things from the southern world: Why do you think this approach was neglected for such a long time?

Ahuja: Our entrenched way of thinking also left its mark on our institutions. We tend to view our world from a strongly European and North-Atlan-tic perspective – even though this may en com pass other parts of the world, the general orientation is given. In the Anglo-Saxon world, for instance, it’s still not unusual to find university courses with the title “The west and the rest”. In Germany, the “World Wars” are generally still taught as if they had been exclusively European Wars. We’re not saying this is the first time that historiography focuses on the global. However, the old imperial history that goes back to the 19th century has left its legacy: University chairs, libraries – and, of course, lines of research are dominated by certain ways of thinking. Consider, for instance, the con-cept of diffusion: The notion that universal mod-ernization processes emanating from Europe will eventually take hold with similar results in other parts of the world. Empirically unsustainable, the concept shows surprising resilience. This is rein-forced by the fact that the discipline of history is still marked by a pronounced national bias today: If this holds true in university departments, things are even worse in schools.

This means that a special effort has to be made?

Ahuja: Yes, it takes a lot to even partially change such entrenched mind sets. The history of global connections has created an extremely uneven landscape since the 19th century. Certain regions of the world are deeply intertwined, whereas


others are marginalized. Divergences of historical development are not necessarily worn down in the wake of the historical process but sometimes deepened. To quote an example: The debate in economic history concerning the “great diver-gence” in the development of Europe and China. Of course, here we should also ask: Why does Europe, once again, serve as the yardstick and how come we don’t focus on comparing process-es of other regions of the world? Why don’t we look, for instance, into twentieth-century political transformations in the area of social policy that had quite different impacts in Latin America and South Asia?

What we should do, then, is set new points of reference in global history and shift the focus onto neglected ones?

Ahuja: Yes, but it goes farther than that. Taking a different look at things might result in reveal-ing other spatial relations, resulting in a different relationship to the global. At the moment I still perceive a predominance of a triumphalist glo-balization narrative: The world is flat, space is

vanishing – dissolved by new technologies – and time is all that matters now. Encompassing a southern-world perspective reveals that time-space compression unfolds in an extremely un even way, and that we are faced with a much more fissured geography of the world than that conveyed by the conventional narrative and the media.

Is there any one thing you are particularly looking forward to: Perhaps an area where much is still unknown and where your research approach could possibly open up something really new?

Ahuja: I’ll answer your question by quoting two examples. Two years ago the Volkswagen Founda-tion held a conference on the First World War from a global historical perspective, placing a stronger focus on how the war was appropriated in the southern world – this thematic area could also be of interest to our project, by the way. The conference revealed many serious consequences of the war that have received little attention in the North Atlantic region until recently: For instance,

the political and economic developments in the Middle East and the accompanying food crises; the massive delegitimization of colonial rule in Asia that led to a nationalism supported by broad sections of the population; and debates in Latin America concerning the inaptitude of the Europe-an model for shaping the future of politics on the continent. Conventional world-war historiography took little note of these profound consequences of the First World War. Here, there is really scope for breaking completely new ground. We can open up new perspectives on major world events – events that we previously failed to grasp in respect of their consequences for the world as a whole. Another area that holds promise of revealing new insights is that surrounding the social movements that emerged around 1968; and then there is the economic crisis that spread around the world in the mid- seventies.

A second level could be more structural. Here, I am looking at the present-day situation. In Europe, the phenomenon of precarious employ-ment relations occupies a prominent position in debates surrounding labor market developments.

That is to say: The growing job insecurity facing a part of the working population. In the southern world the debate is dominated by another phe-nomenon: so-called ‘informalisation’. Informal work is the term given to labor relations not sub-ject to social security schemes or labor law pro-tection. The proportions vary substantially: Whereas in many European countries precarious employment relations still only affect a minority of the workforce and are perceived as an unfortu-nate departure from ‘normality’, in the majority of countries in the southern world informal labor relations constitute the absolute norm. In many countries of the global South, only a very small minority of people have jobs that are linked to any welfare entitlements or protected by law. This gives rise to the question: What is the histo-ry behind these two very different narratives; are they linked in some strange way? In the 1950s and 60s it would have been assumed that in Europe and America a work norm regulated by a welfare state had emerged, and that this would eventually become the norm around the whole world. Today, we not only have to realize this has not taken place, but that in our countries the growth of precarious labor relations increasingly bears at least partial similarity with the domi-nating form of informal work in the southern world. Thus, our previous notion of global pro-cesses has been refuted by real life. Historiogra-phy can play a role in explaining how we reached this point, contrary to all expectations.

I would like to ask you about your personal attachment to this field of research. What is the importance of global history to you?

Ahuja: Historiography has a tendency to develop in turns and waves. Some people say we are cur-rently witnessing a period of global turn which results in global history becoming the adequate modern form of historical narrative. I personally don’t share this view. Rather, I am of the opinion that historical research should be free to choose its own scales of reference – and these may well vary from case to case. For area studies of the

The large thematic field of

labor is also relevant for

global history research.

Professor Ahuja standing

in front of an image of a

reportage series on labor

migration in India

by photographer Florian

Müller, Hanover.


kind I specialize in, historiography has made enormous advances over the past decades in terms of local as well as regional history. Due to shifting the focus onto smaller, subnational spaces and exploring these in greater depth it has sought to overcome the previously dominant national perspective. I see this as a significant achievement, and as a result we have gained a multitude of new insights. We should be careful not to lose sight of this. I also believe that the national scale is far from withering away, despite all premature obituaries, and also remains important for writing history. Processes over the past years, though, illustrate that we have to look beyond the nation state if we wish to address urgent questions. With regard to the processes I just mentioned in connection with precarious and informal labor relations, for instance, we need to rescale our perspective. These questions simply cannot be adequately answered within a purely national context – and also not by local studies. Rather, we need research into global political discourses, international crises, and

For further information on the project and researchers

involved please visit:

• www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/globalhistory

social as well as economic dynamics that don’t stop at national borders. We need research that enables us to look beyond these borders and redefine them.

You don’t see this, though, as the final goal of developments in the field?

Ahuja: What is the most interesting aspect of this development? Conventional historiography has often been criticized for being trapped within the context of a methodological nationalism. The question is what can we do about it? Proclaiming a methodological globalism or localism in its place won’t do. To overcome methodological national-ism means to ensure that the determination of the space of relevance becomes part and parcel of every new research project. To put it another way: It is in the process of defining and pursuing our research question that we also discover what the relevant research space should be. And many of the research questions we pose today reveal that the global space is the most adequate.

Interview

A very interesting aspect: To overcome methodological nationalism …

Ahuja: Perhaps I should explain a little further. In Europe, the development of historiography was closely linked to the development of the national states. That was not only the case in Europe but also in post-colonial nations – although this took place in the twentieth century and against quite another background. The postcolonial historiog-raphies in Asia and in Africa first had to free themselves of the imperial perspective. Hence, in many respects the national perspective was the result of overcoming the older dominant perspec-tive, whereas in the European context the nation-al perspective was the original point of depar-ture. That has a great number of consequences. First, in the European space – as well as the American –, young historians find the turn towards global perspectives far less problematic and more liberating. It means reaching beyond a space that had been preset for a long time. In postcolonial contexts the problem is much more complex. Here, too, many historians had per-ceived over the past four decades the nation-cen-teredness of historiography to be inadequate and as such unacceptable. However, the turn towards global supranational perspectives is still bur-dened by the tradition of imperial history. This explains why in India and other parts of the world there was a tendency to concentrate on smaller, subnational levels. A certain naivety in respect of global history might exist in Europe, but not so much from postcolonial perspectives. This may prove beneficial and helpful in respect of developing critical global perspectives on history.

And perhaps another argument in support of purposefully allowing the global South to come to the fore and have more say …?

Ahuja: Precisely! It is not just about bringing in more empirical material and drawing on more encompassing data dossiers: It’s all about chang-ing our perspectives. For us it is of great impor-

tance to investigate topics that also have a global dimension from a decentered perspective: In my case and that of my colleagues this means from South Asia. We are actually already doing this in several different projects. For instance, a large collaborative project funded by the German Fed-eral Ministry for Education and Research for an International Center for Advanced Studies (MICAS: MP) in Delhi, in which several German and Indian partners are participating. In this respect, the project supported by the Volkswagen Foundation is part of a strategic orientation.

The project will run for three years. That’s certainly a good impulse, but what about the prospects for a lasting effect ?

Ahuja: In my view, the most sustainable activity you can think of is to invest in people. And that is precisely what the project is designed to do. The objective is to enable the young generation of historians at the start of their career to develop new perspectives. They will be able to explore the plurality of research perspectives in different parts of the world and encouraged to adopt simi-lar approaches. This is a long-term ‘investment’ as many of these young researchers will one day occupy university chairs. The earlier they are giv-en an opportunity to break out of the provincial constraints that exist in every national historiog-raphy and reflect critically on their situation, the earlier this will also become anchored sustaina-bly at universities.

http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/globalhistory



Construction supervisor

Kelvin Manaseh explaining

the stages of the major

project to concrete experts

Boudewijn Piscaer and

Professor Raissa Ferron.

During the excursion

to the new airport

terminal in Dar es

Salaam, the KEYS dele-

gates could see how

modern construction

technology combines

steel and concrete

synergistically.

There was a certain amount of defiance in play when Nsesheye Msinjili chose to study engineer-ing. “Studying engineering is generally perceived to be particularly demanding, and women there-fore shouldn’t attempt it. So I made up my mind to do just that”, says the young woman from Tanzania. She now works for the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Ber-lin and is very happy in her work; among other things she researches new formulas for produc-ing cement. Her colleague, Dr. Wolfram Schmidt, shares her enthusiasm for this crucial building material which is used all over the world. The two of them initiated KEYS, which stands for Knowl-edge Exchange for Young Scientists. The project aims at building networks to bring international experts together with young African scientists for an exchange of knowledge on cement and concrete technology. What‘s so special about this three-part series is the combination of summer school features and the quality of scientific sym-posia: Young researchers get the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and to discuss their ideas with experienced senior scientists – in an atmosphere of mutual acceptance and esteem.

The first of the three symposia was held in June 2015 in cooperation with the University of Dar es Salaam. From a total of thirty candidates, Msinjili and Schmidt had carefully selected the eighteen young African scientists who were granted a scholarship to attend the kick-off event in the Tanzanian metropolis. Also four young German researchers received funds to participate and were able to benefit from the expertise of the ten high-level specialists who came from Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Sweden, Great Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, and South Afri-

Bio-Based Cement Solutions – Made in AfricaYoung African scientists are developing innovative formulas to produce building materials with local resources. The Volkswagen Foundation is funding the KEYS symposia series in Tanzania, Ghana, and South Africa.



ca. Assembling this heterogeneous group for a week’s program entailed manifold challenges which Nsesheye Msinjili managed by her proven organizational skills.

It is for good reason that such keen interest is being shown in the gray building material: The economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are booming and the demand for cement to build new roads, bridges, and buildings is rising fast. In Africa, though, the cost of producing and purchasing the sought-after material is high. “Depending on the region, an average earner has to work anything between one and ten days in order to buy a bag of cement that in Germany would only cost a couple of euros”, Schmidt explains. This is partly due to the transport costs involved. In Sub-Saharan Africa, cement works are few and far between, and the material often has to be transported over distances of several hundred miles before reaching the building site. Moreover,

some of the raw materials needed for cement production have to be imported. Although it may be cheaper in the short run to import subsidized cement from China or Pakistan, for instance, this would be contrary to the need to create badly needed jobs at home and to develop more sus-tainable local solutions fitting in ideally with the local boundary framework and supply chains. In addition, from a more global point of view, it does not make any real sense to ship products halfway around the globe that can be produced from local resources that exist in overabundance.

The main focus of the symposium was therefore on the topic of research into new binder mate-rials and cement compositions incorporating supplementary cementitious materials in an attempt to make the local production of cement and mortar more environmentally friendly and cost efficient. The four days were filled with lec-tures, presentations, discussions, and a visit to a large construction site. “The participants were highly focused all the time”, reports Schmidt. “It wasn’t unusual to find them deeply engrossed in discussion until far into the night”. The 27-year-old construction engineer Farai Shaba from Zam-bia was full of praise: “I think the symposium showed us all that we’re not alone and that we all have similar problems to tackle – but also that we will progress faster through cooperation.” Kolawole Olonade from the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria was of the same opinion, saying he had received great encouragement: “The symposium has already had an effect on my work. For example, I learned about a new method I can use to characterize cement additives.” He reports that he was also able to make new con-tacts with prospects for cooperation in future.

The young scientists were not short of ideas to resolve the crucial problem of cost. They propose promising alternatives by substituting some of the classic components of cement with ingredi-ents found locally, like agricultural plant waste instead of industrial by-products from heavy industries such as fly ash or ground granulated

blast furnace slag that simply do not exist in most African countries. Nsesheye Msinjili, for instance, is working on formulas containing the ash gained from rice husks, which in Tanzania can be found in large quantities. Symposium participant Olonade from Nigeria, for his part, suggests using the ash from cassava peel, coco-nut fiber, and the seed sacks of oil palm – for all of which there is no shortage where he comes from. He has already experimented with these ingredients as potential cement additives and found them to be suitable. BAM research-er Schmidt adds, “The cane waste known as bagasse, a left-over of sugar production, is another possible ingredient”.

New types of cement using local ingredients also constitute a valuable contribution towards climate protection. For instance, large amounts of energy are required in the production of classic Portland cement, which is made of limestone, clay, sand, and iron ore. This is especially due to the very high temperatures and the decomposi-tion of limestone. “Every ton of limestone clinker entails 0.8 tons of carbon dioxide emissions”, says Schmidt. That might appear to be rather insig-nificant compared with the production of other building materials, but the global production of cement is very high and it is growing at an enormous pace. As a result, the cement indus-try is responsible for about five percent of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions today; it thus produces more greenhouse gas than the steel industry or air traffic. If we continue produc-ing cement without new concepts, in 2050 the cement industry will be responsible for about 30 percent of the total CO2 emissions in the world.

According to Schmidt, “Action is urgently need-ed”. He remains optimistic, though, and believes the new cement formulas will lead to important energy savings. Carbon dioxide emissions can be cut significantly by reducing the clinker content in cement, either in industrial nations through the addition of waste products from steel pro-duction or coal combustion or, as proposed by

the young scientists from Africa, agricultural plant waste. Schmidt is quick to point out that, “because there isn’t so much industrial waste in Africa but a strong agricultural sector, using plant waste harbors a huge potential.”

However, a lot of research still has to be done before this potential can be realized. And here lies the nub of the problem: The academic train-ing of budding construction engineers and chem-ists at most African universities fails to address some of the necessary skill-sets. “Although the students are highly focused, their studies tend to concentrate on applied science rather than research”, Schmidt has noticed. Academic teach-ing revolves around the classic lecture that more often than not is based on old literature. In addi-tion to this, the professors do not enjoy the same status as in industrial nations and they are often badly paid – some having to top up their salary with jobs on the side. Under such circumstances, the area of research is the first to suffer.

As a consequence, there is already a serious lack of suitably-trained local scientists. Experts must therefore be brought in from abroad at high cost,

Happy with the

symposium: Organizer

Nsesheye Msinjili (left)

and participants Prof.

Dr. Raissa Ferron and

Ph.D. fellow Apollo

Buregyeya. Below: The

young scientists and

professionals

carefully listened to

all presentations. Top: The intensive

atmosphere persisted

also during the coffee

breaks in the garden

of the venue.

Below: Discussing on

science-practice

relation: Dans Naturin-

da and Dr. Wolfram

Schmidt (right). The

sym posium was closed

by Dr. John Makunza

from Dar es Salaam

University (left).

46


while highly motivated graduates often choose alternative careers or have to emigrate because they can’t find a job in their branch at home. “That’s totally unbalanced”, Schmidt complains. Over the next twenty years the demand for engi-neers in the emerging economies of Sub-Saharan Africa is going to grow rapidly, so the problem can only get worse.

As the engaged German researcher with a wealth of experience in the organization of internation-al congresses knows, “Another problem is that young scientists are not able to benefit fully from offers of international networking and cooper-ation or attend expert events through lack of financial support”. He sees this as a shortcoming of development policy. “Without question, chil-dren must learn to read and write, and also adult education is important. However, we should step up efforts to improve the education of university students. After all, those are the people who will shape the future of their countries in academia, politics, and economy. We should support them in achieving a really sustainable development and a secure independent existence”, he stresses.

Schmidt has no doubt that the young African scientists are going to make their mark. “The next generation of sustainable cement types is going to come from Africa”, he says. And because they are not so entrenched in conventions, he fully expects African engineers to come up with new ideas in other areas of construction like building design, for instance.

Having closed with a visit to the large airport construction site in Dar Es Salaam, the event as a whole delivered a motivational boost to the par-ticipants’ research efforts and further education. For example, some of them now want to enroll on online courses offered by foreign universities in combination with personal mentoring.

Msinjili and Schmidt, the organizers, are doing their part to ensure that the symposium series has an ongoing impact. Besides compiling a

For further information on KEYS please visit:

• www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/keys

200-page report on the symposium proceedings, they have initiated a LinkedIn group to provide a platform for participants and experts alike to keep in touch.

Msinjili is already making plans for the next two symposia to be held 2016 in Accra, Ghana, and 2017 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The focus then will be on valorization of by-products for cement production and waste management, as well as on application of tailored African concrete solutions and new capacity building, respectively. The construction engineer expects many more applications than for the kick-off event, and she hopes next time to receive more applications from Germany. In future she would also prefer the symposia to be held in universi-ties rather than hotels: “That way local students would be able to benefit by listening to the pres-entations of the international young researchers and experts, and they could possibly actively participate with posters, for instance, and pro-vide added inspiration to the discussions and proceedings”.

Over the next couple of years, Msinjili will have her hands full working on her doctoral project and her concept for refining rice-husk ash for use as a sustainable and applicable cement clinker replacement. And she also wants to do her part in raising the share of women in her branch. This was another result of the symposium in Dar Es Salaam: All six female African participants expressed their conviction that female engineers should more often be able to present themselves and their work at schools and universities. This would encourage young women to become involved with sustainable construction projects and play a greater role in shaping the future of their country.

Andrea Hoferichter


The transformation processes in the Arab world triggered by the ‘Arab Spring’ 2010/2011 are also an important topic for research. The Volkswagen Foundation soon offered scholars from Germany and the Arab region opportunities to engage in cooperative research on special aspects of these processes. How does a project function under the diffi cult circum stances that prevail in the region? Is it at all possible for science to accompany pro-cesses developing at such a pace that it’s diffi cult to keep up with events? Mareike Knoke spoke with Middle East historian Ulrike Freitag.

Professor Freitag, many scholars say the fast-moving events of the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011 took them completely by surprise. Did you think it would develop so rapidly?

Freitag: I had no idea that the uprisings would spread so quickly from one country to another, and that they would give rise to the bloody civil wars now raging in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Of course, everyone knew that something was afoot, that there were discussions and widespread discontent. The enormous escalation, though, caught us all by surprise.

What effect do such surprise turns of event have on your work as a researcher?

Freitag: Changes like these are part and parcel of my daily work as I research precisely those areas where certain social or political movements are likely to originate: schools, youth clubs, and youth magazines. Moreover, the transformation project I’m part of here at ZMO is investigating public and private spaces of participation and resistance in Morocco, Egypt, and Palestine.

With Flexibility, a Sense of Responsibility, and Patience Cooperative research on developments in the Arab world is a challenge for all concerned.

Interview

Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag is director of the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin (ZMO) since 2002. A historian of the Middle East, one of her special interests is Saudi Arabia. The ZMO is an internationally recog-nized and leading re search institute devoted to interdisciplinary study of the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, South and South East Asia with a strong historical perspective. Within the context of the fi rst call of the funding scheme “Transformation Processes in the Arab World”, the Volkswagen Foundation is funding a project called “Spaces of Participation: Topographies of Political and Social Change in Morocco, Egypt, and Palestine”, which is run by Ulrike Freitag and Dr. Sarah Jurkiewicz together with local partners.

http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/keys


You can never tell exactly when the critical undercurrents in society there are likely to change suddenly into something qualitatively different; namely, movements of open protest.

The objective pursued by the Foundation’s funding scheme is to research these processes in cooperation with Arab partners, to monitor events, and perhaps even provide support in the form of knowledge gain. To what extent can that succeed, do you think?

Freitag: We are working together with Arab partners in different countries. We want to func-tion as a catalyst, helping young academics to network among themselves: Especially when it comes to drawing comparisons between the processes in the countries concerned. Most of the young researchers we are in contact with are already strongly committed individuals. The projects are intended to provide further food for thought. We hope to complement this input via our project meetings in the partner countries. Besides discussing our research work, we will also invite local artists and intellectuals to attend a public event. The idea is to initiate a communication process that will outlive the

actual pro jects. Whether this functions or not, we will just have to wait and see.

Do you come across any hurdles during your work?

Freitag: In our case there were some difficulties concluding the required cooperation agreements with the partner universities. As we already knew from other colleagues, we often have to be extremely flexible. For instance, immediately fol-lowing the revolution, our Egyptian colleague tried to formalize the research cooperation with Cairo University. The university management was very taken with the idea. And then – it was shortly after President Mursi’s ouster – she was informed by her university that it was no longer opportune for local academics to work with researchers in other countries. In any case, she was told, it would take several years before an agreement could be signed. In Morocco, on the other hand, not only would tax have had to be paid on the project funds, depleting them signifi-cantly, but also the university wanted to keep part of it as institutional overhead. This would have meant nothing would be left over for the local Ph.D. students. We did finally manage in both cases to conclude agreements, but had to find another solution for the young research associates via stipend contracts.

Does the fast pace of developments in these countries sometimes frustrate project proceedings?

Freitag: Here, we have to be flexible, too. For instance, during the kick-off meeting for our pro-ject in Berlin we had to confront the question whether, after the overthrow of Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013, it would still be possible to investigate the protest camp on Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and carry out interviews. Was such a field study still possible, or would it endanger the young research associates in Cairo and, of course, their interlocutors? They could easily be identified as

such from the interviews and subsequently put under arrest. For the same reason, we refrained from setting up a Facebook page for the project because data security – details of the participat-ing persons – couldn’t be ensured.

That means you feel a sense of responsibility for your partners?

Freitag: But of course. We must never lose sight of the safety of the people we cooperate with. We have to take the threat of possible reprisals very seriously indeed. In many cases, the very fact that funding is received from abroad can be enough to raise suspicion. For this reason, for a long time we have made a point of discussing with our partners whether granting a German stipend might be a danger for research associates in their countries.

Do you always know the reason why your and other researchers’ efforts are sometimes thwarted?

Freitag: At least sometimes official reasons are given. I can relate an experience made in a pro-ject initiated by German and French colleagues in Saudi Arabia: An architect wanted to research traditional stone architecture in Saudi Arabian villages in cooperation with a local women’s uni-versity. The local governor of the region, however, banned a planned meeting in one of the villages because he considered the presence of young female students to be indecent – supposedly because it couldn’t be ensured that the genders would be separated during the event. Whether the ban was really due to moral considerations or whether the governor was bothered by the idea that a free exchange might take place between the artists, village inhabitants, urban intellectu-als, and foreign researchers expected to be pres-ent, we never found out.

Are problems like that negotiable?

Freitag: The mood can change at any time and at very short notice; we have to live with that.

Sometimes such issues can be negotiated with local authorities, sometimes one just has to act at the spur of the moment.

What about support here in Germany: Is there sufficient funding for research on the Arab world?

Freitag: The funding that comes from the Volkswagen Foundation is something of a wind-fall: It takes into account the need for flexibility l was talking about and which is so important for researchers working in the region. Of course we would like to see more initiatives of this type. It is most unlikely that state institutions would be prepared to fund a project like ours because of the frequently unstable research conditions.

In conclusion, a question about the role you play: How far do you see yourself in an advisory position?

Freitag: For my part – I’m sure I can also talk for my German project colleagues at ZMO in this respect – I do not see myself as an advisor in the countries we are researching in. We cannot, and we don’t want to intervene in local politics. The only exception might, at times, be an academic advisory function. However, I do perceive an important task in reaching as wide a public as possible. In Germany we can do this by means of scientific and other publications and lectures that challenge stereotypes and provide a differ-entiated picture of Arab countries and the condi-tions that prevail there. We of course also want to address the politicians. For it appears they often have no idea of how diverse positions and discus-sions are within different Arab countries. There are many facets quite surprising to outsiders, such as the existence of many well trained criti-cal artists and intellectuals in a country such as Saudi Arabia.

Professor Freitag

at the Zentrum

Moderner Orient

in Berlin.

For information on projects funded under this scheme

please visit:

• www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/arabregion

Interview

http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/arabregion



Research Capacity and Water-Related Diseases: Improving Risk Management Strategies for Public Healthcare in Uzbekistan (HEALTHCAP)”, which is investigating conditions in the Central Asian country.

Besides three Uzbek institutes another coopera-tion partner is the International Centre for Inte-grated Assessment and Sustainable Development at the University of Maastricht in the Nether-lands. The overall aim of the collaborative project is to strengthen research on the theme in Uzbek-istan and develop new strategies of risk assess-ment so that local health-sector actors can be

In Uzbekistan researchers are facing up to the complex questions: To which extent does the population have access to adequate hygiene and sufficient supplies of clean drinking water? How can the health risks associated with water be prevented or at least diminished? “We still don’t know enough about the links or the exposure routes through which pathogens breeding in water affect human health in the region”, says Dr. Saravanan Subramanian, an expert in the fields of health systems and water management at the University of Bonn’s Center for Development Research (ZEF). Dr. Subramanian is the coordina-tor of a research project bearing the title “Health

Water is the source of life, and in many cultures it is symbolic for purity. However, water can also endanger life. Louis Pasteur, the father of microbiology, stated more than 100 years ago that “we drink 90 percent of our diseases”. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of all cases of disease worldwide can be traced to contaminated water. In many regions of Central Asia, for instance, an adequate supply of clean water is by no means self-evi-dent. This also applies to Uzbekistan, where the WHO says there is an increased risk of contract-ing waterborne diseases like infectious diarrhea, viral hepatitis or bacterial dysentery.

Researchers from the

RISHOD Institute visit

households in the

Kibray district near

Tashkent: Dr. Dinora

Khashirbaeva and

Aziz Rasulov (at the

table), Laylo Basha-

rova (top) and Lola

Isakova (right) collect

the required data via a

questionnaire.

trained and healthcare improved. The Volkswa-gen Foundation is supporting the project within the context of its Central Asia funding initiative, which has already supported some 300 projects and made over 50 million euros available for the successful cooperation between researchers in Germany and in the region. In this framework, Uzbek researchers were granted 5.6 million euros for 37 projects.

Since Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, several organizations have been active in enhancing the country’s water supplies. Like other projects, HEALTHCAP builds on existing

Water Is Life, and Clean Water Means HealthIn a collaborative effort scientists from three countries are researching the correlation between water supply and the risk of disease in Uzbekistan.



national health reforms and policy initiatives like the “Water Safety Plan”, which among others foresees the full development and moderniza-tion of the water and health systems by the year 2020. Dr. Subramanian points out, “HEALTHCAP stands out by its scientific and interdiscipli-nary approach in analyzing the complex link-age between water supply and public health”. According to his colleague, hydrologist and team leader Prof. Dr. Islam Usmanov from the Research Institute of Irrigation and Water Problems (RII-WP) at Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Meli-oration “Previous measures undertaken by the authorities concentrated on stopping the spread of disease once an infection broke out. There was no attempt to investigate the impacts of climate, environmental change, or industrial and agricul-tural production”. Altogether, the project pools expertise from the fields of epidemiology, public health, economics, water management, geogra-phy, the social sciences, and computer science. The partners perceive their cross-border and

cross-disciplinary approach as a real opportunity to analyze the complex issues in detail and devel-op suitable solutions.

Uzbekistan has a continental climate marked by hot, dry summers and low rainfall. The inten-sive cultivation of cotton and other branches of agriculture take enormous amounts of water, and the use of fertilizer and pesticides is wide-spread. In addition to this, Uzbekistan’s rapidly growing industry consumes almost 0.75 cubic miles of water every year, half of which is chan-neled back in a contaminated state – constituting a further major threat to the supply of drinking water. As a consequence of all this, in Uzbekistan water has become a scarce commodity – in com-bination with inadequate hygiene conditions posing threat to human health. According to the Joint Monitoring Panel of the WHO/UNICEF, only about 47 percent of the total population have access to mains water supplies. Many people, especially in rural regions, have to fetch their

Inquiring about

the needs of young

and old: Dr. Roza

Kamilova, scientific

coordinator at RISHOD

for the HEALTHCAP

project, and her col-

leagues are talking

to the people and

examining the type

and quality

of water supply.

Also households in

the industrial town of

Olmaliq are included

in the survey.


water from springs, rivers, and canals, and many depend on trucked water. It is estimated that more than 30 percent of the population is con-suming water that does not meet national stan-dards. “Under conditions like these it’s no wonder that hygiene suffers and there is a high incidence of infectious disease”, says Saravanan Subrama-nian, who already worked on the issue of water supply in South Asia.

In an initial work package, the HEALTHCAP team mapped the status of water supply and sanitation and the health sector infrastructure in Tashkent province. Data were gathered also regarding water quality, the health status of the population and sociocultural dimensions. In a second step they carry out a detailed survey of private households. “We chose the region of Tashkent because of its combination of rural and urban habitats with readily accessible health data including waterborne diseases”, explains Aziz Rasulov from the Research Institute of Sanitation, Hygiene and Occupational Diseases (RISHOD). With 4.45 million inhabitants, Tashkent province is the country’s third-biggest and fastest growing province, surrounding the capital of the same name in the North East of Uzbekistan. Here, over 80 percent of the population is connected to the mains water supply, and 70 percent of house-holds are equipped with a wastewater system. Although steps are taken to improve water sup-ply, there are still not enough wastewater treat-ment plants, or water distribution systems. Many of the facilities that do exist were built in the 70s of the last century and require renovation and modernization by now.

In this respect, though, there are differences over the country as a whole as well as between urban and rural areas. In the province of Tash-kent the HEALTHCAP team is therefore looking at two quite different districts. The industrial town of Olmaliq, about 70 miles from Tashkent, in the center of a mining region. Most of the house-holds are connected to the mains supply. In con-trast, the rural district Kibray is just a 15- minute

car ride from Tashkent and many of the people here access water via wells or pumps from ground aquifers near their homes, others have to fetch it from the river or from water distribu-tion points. Based on a computer-aided survey of about 250 selected households in each of the two districts the researchers are collecting the major part of the up-to-date data they need. They are assisted by master students from Tashkent State Medical Academy.

The participating households have to answer a comprehensive list of questions: How do you access your water, what do you use it for, how clean is it, are you happy with the supply, what diseases are common in your community? Ph.D. student Minjung Cho from ZEF, University of Bonn, has already gathered experience in other international research projects, “in which I worked mostly on strategies and measures for improving the health sector”. In the framework of HEALTHCAP the young researcher passed on her knowledge of methods like biostatistics and data management in two workshops held at the start of the project and she is supporting the survey. Knowledge transfer like this is appreciated by the Uzbek partners. RISHOD researcher Lola Isakova

reports: „Since 2014 I have been aware of the pro-ject and meanwhile I have learnt some new sci-entific methodology in partnership with the Ger-man experts. Currently I contribute to the project by helping to fill the gaps in the monitoring of water-related diseases by analyzing the epidemi-ological and environmental parameters.”

The household survey has just started, but older data already reveal the impact of environmental influences: “In the summer months between June and September some regions exhibit a higher incidence of acute diarrhea than the rest of the year”, says Subramanian. The data show a clear connection between the monthly temperature, water quality, and waterborne diseases. HEALTHCAP team member Professor Usmanov believes, “this is only one indication of the growing significance of climatic influences”. In Uzbekistan climate change is having a greater impact than in Europe: The annual mean tem-peratures there are already two degrees Celsius higher. As a consequence, climate researchers have recorded an accordant glacial melting in the mountain regions. In the medium to long term this is bound to accentuate the problem of water scarcity in the region.

“The investigations provide vital insights into facets of climate change that impact on the health of the population”, says Aziz Rasu-lov. Moreover, like Professor Usmanov, he is convinced that HEALTHCAP delivers the basis for a future Center of Excellence on environmental and health research in Uzbekistan that will also lead to a further strengthening of cooperation between European and Uzbek researchers. ZEF researcher Dr. Subramanian assesses the sig-nificance of the project in the following words: “I believe our findings will be of value for other provinces in Uzbekistan and maybe even far beyond – for instance countries and continents, where climate change is not yet quite so evident”.

No matter what the prevailing relations between environment, water, and health, people all over the world are dependent on a good supply of water. Actress and UNESCO activist Audrey Hep-burn once summed this up in the simple formula: “Water is life, and clean water means health“.

Heidrun Riehl-Halen

Project meeting in

Tashkent: Dr. Sara-

vanan Subramanian

(second from left)

from ZEF Bonn giving

his presentation as

project coordinator to

the Uzbek partners in

August 2015; among

them: Aziz Rasulov

(RISHOD) and

Prof. Dr. Islam

Usmanov (right) from

RIIWP. Also joining

the discussion: Ph.D.

candidate Laylo Bas-

harova, Dr. Dinora

Khashirbaeva and Dr.

Roza Kamilova

(from left).

For further information on the project please visit:

• www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/healthcap

Hand water pumps

are still a common

means of providing

households with fresh

water. Here, Dr. Dinora

Khashirbaeva is inter-

viewing a housewife

at the well in an annex

of the family home.


http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/cb/healthcap

Number 35 Kastanienallee:

The Foundation’s office in the south of Hanover.

The Foundation’s PurposeThe purpose of the Foundation is to support and advance the humanities and social sciences as well as science and technology in higher education and research.

(Statutes of the Volkswagen Foundation, § 2)

The Foundation’s MissionThe Foundation is committed to encouraging ambitious research across disciplinary, institutional, and national borders and to supporting creative researchers in breaking new ground.

Published byVolkswagenStiftung

Hanover, January 2016

Editor

Beate Reinhold

Head of Communication

Jens Rehländer

Translation

Language Associates, Bremen

Production

Medienteam-Samieske, Hanover

Gutenberg Beuys, Hanover

Copyright

VolkswagenStiftung, 2016

Photography/Referencestitle: Adilet Bekturov from Bishkek University (left)

going through the questionnaire with herder Kalbai Abdiev

who is prepared to use the GPS logger. (cf. page 16)

Maxim Shubovich, Bishkek

page 4: Mirko Krenzel, Hanover

page 5: Eberhard Franke, München

page 6: Martin Neumann, Hanover

page 8: Sven Stolzenwald, Hanover

page 9: Muhammad Fadli, Jakarta

page 10: Daniel Pilar, Hanover

page 11: Kristy Carlson, Bujumbura

page 12: Samyra Cury Salek

pages 14 – 19 top, and 20 top: Maxim Shubovich, Bishkek

page 19 below: Gordon Welters, Berlin

pages 20 below and 21 top:

Otgongerel Buyanaa, Ulaanbaatar

pages 22 and 25 top right: Mattias Erfurt, GPPi Berlin

page 23: picture alliance/Photoshot

pages 24 and 25 top left: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, São Paulo

pages 26 – 30: Sutee Wongkamolchun, Chiangmai

page 31: Fabian Fiechter, Hanover/Lörrach

pages 32 – 35: Jean-Rivel Fondjo, Kumasi

pages 37 – 40 and 56/57: Florian Müller, Hanover

pages 42 – 45: OGS Studios, Dar es Salaam

pages 47 – 48: Rolf Schulten, Berlin

pages 50 – 55: Eugeniy Moiseev, Tashkent

Publishing Information

58

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Phone: +49 (0)511 8381-0Fax: +49 (0)511 8381-344

[email protected]


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