HCE COLLOQUIUM “HEIDELBERGER BRÜCKE” From advocacy to action
How can Universities and Cities work together to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals?
PUBLIC PANEL DISCUSSION
15 Mai 2025
17:30–19:30 CET
Heidelberg, Great Hall, Old University, Grabengasse 1
Livestream
When cities work towards implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is crucial to bring all relevant stakeholders to the table. In cities with strong universities, collaboration between city councils and university leadership can unlock powerful synergies. Inter- and transdisciplinary research offers valuable expertise, while citizen science and public participation could act as key drivers for developing inclusive strategies. The event is designed to engage a broad audience—both within and beyond academia—fostering dialogue between researchers, policymakers, students, and engaged citizens.
Join us for a panel discussion featuring local and international experts as we explore opportunities and challenges in aligning multi-stakeholder efforts for sustainable urban development.
Registration is required.
Participation is free of charge.
Panel
Prof. Dr. Géraldine Pflieger
University of Geneva
A professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and a science representative in the Swiss delegation at the UN Climate Change Conferences (COPs).
Prof. Dr. Natasha de Vere
The Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen
A biodiversity scientist and botany curator, as well as a leading researcher in projects on the importance of plants and gardens for human health, well-being, biodiversity, and the environment.
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Gerhard
Heidelberg University
A professor for Human Geography of North America, and a leading scientist in several European networks, including the 4EU+ Alliance Flagship Urban Health and Demographic Change.
Raoul Schmidt-Lamontain
Mayor for Climate Protection, Environment and Mobility, City of Heidelberg
Host & facilitator:
Dr. Maximilian Jungmann
Heidelberg Center for the Environment, Heidelberg University
About the topic
Mostly, universities are embedded in a city-context. Within cities, universities perform as strong stakeholders not only due to their physical size with respect to covered area and buildings, their large numbers of employees, students and academic staff, but also due to the massive energy consumption within certain research activities. Therefore, from a sustainability perspective, it appears logic that city governance and university administration should aspire for harnessing synergies in their attempts to promote “green” traffic concepts and alternative energy policies. Additional challenges come from climate change-induced “heat islands”, loss of biodiversity, but also from the need to develop passive housing standards. In case of historical buildings or entire city quarters, additional challenges may arise from reconciling adaptive technologies with the need for monument protection. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research at universities could address all these challenges and develop concepts for evidence-based solutions. Since effective concepts to meet the above-mentioned challenges often require acceptance of and/or collaboration with the local population, citizen science can operate as a means to integrate public opinion and awareness into sustainability strategies. Being a link between academic science and city governance, citizen science – such as for data collection or as part of co-creation processes – may prove instrumental for jointly developing inclusive solutions.
As a joint endeavour of partner universities of the 4EU+European University Alliance, the event provides a unique platform to discuss diverse approaches in addressing global challenges and thus open up new perspectives for promoting connections between cities and science.
About the guests
Raoul Schmidt-Lamontain has been Heidelberg’s Deputy Mayor for Climate Protection, Environment, and Mobility since 2020. He promotes sustainable mobility with numerous new bicycle streets, express routes, and a 2,000-space bike parking facility. The OASIS program at Bismarckplatz and climate-resilient urban areas support adaptation to climate change. Looking ahead, he is driving the transport transition in Heidelberg with the Climate Mobility and Transport Development Plan 2035, integrating regional mobility solutions and thus creating mobility options. Academia and civil society play a key role in this process. He will discuss this collaboration at "From Advocacy to Action"
Géraldine Pflieger is a full professor of urban and environmental policy at the University of Geneva and a Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, which brings together five partner faculties and trains students in the themes of water, climate change, biodiversity protection, regional planning and the energy transition. Since 2020, she has been an associate negotiator and science representative on the Swiss delegation responsible for climate negotiations at the UN Climate Change Conferences (COPs) and since 2023, a leading scientist of the Flagship Environmental Transitions within the 4EU+ University Alliance. She has been nominated as the IPCC Lead Author of the next Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. Her research focuses on climate action and policies at local, regional and international levels.
Natasha de Vere is an interdisciplinary biodiversity scientist, a Curator of botany, and a professor at the University of Copenhagen. In her research, she is focusing in particular on the question about how climate and environmental change impact plant-pollinator interactions and plant diversity over current and historical timeframes. Moreover, she seeks to understand plant-pollinator interactions in anthropogenic landscapes (gardens, urban amenity areas and farmland) and how to improve floral resources for pollinators. She is a Lead Curator of the Biodiversity Gallery, one of the permanent galleries within the new Natural History Museum of Denmark, and engages actively with the public, especially using art-science to explore how humans connect with the natural world.
Our mission
The research incubator “Heidelberg Center for the Environment” (HCE) connects existing competencies in the environmental sciences across disciplinary boundaries at Heidelberg University and serves as a coordinating hub for local, regional and international cooperation and outreach.
With the public event series "Heidelberger Brücke", HCE provides a platform for interdisciplinary exchange both within and beyond Heidelberg University. The series not only bridges different scientific disciplines but also connects the academic community with the interested public.
Within the framework of the 4EU+ European University Alliance, a transnational strategic alliance of eight universities, the HCE assumes a coordinating role for the alliance's flagship "Environmental Transitions" in the 1CORE project in Heidelberg.
By organizing and hosting the event “From Advocacy to Action,” HCE advances the mission of this flagship initiative, since addressing environmental transition requires science that can identify development pathways that are just, fair, and politically acceptable without transgressing planetary boundaries.
Links
1CORE – One Comprehensive Research-Intensive European University
The panel discussion “From advocacy to action” is one of the cross-promotion events in the framework of the 1CORE project. This endeavour aims to create an integrated, transnational European University that will seamlessly connect its eight member institutions from across Europe, giving a fresh impetus to international academic collaboration and fostering the universities' growth in the areas of education, research, innovation and outreach. The 1CORE cross-promotion events seek to emphasise the impact of the Alliance’s work and the value of inter-university interdisciplinary cooperation.
