Global societal challenges such as achieving food security for all, decreasing social inequalities, preventing and overcoming violent conflict and maintaining biodiversity necessarily require strong inter-disciplinary and international research collaboration.
Research at the interface of the environment and development is often hampered by traditional academic boundaries. New ideas and fresh approaches are required to understand such challenges and for research to help overcome them. Young researchers in particular can play a key role in doing so.
To address these exciting research challenges and to help overcome these structural barriers within academia, the five German research institutes ATB (Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy), GIGA (German Institute of Global and Area Studies), IGZ (Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops), ZALF (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research) and ZMT (Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research) have established the Leibniz Environment and Development Symposium (LEADS). The aim of LEADS is to foster interdisciplinary and international research collaboration dealing with global societal challenges among early career researchers and senior scholars.
The two-day conference aims at strengthening interdisciplinary and international cooperation on global social issues between young researchers and established scientists. As such LEADS also understands itself as a contribution by the German research community to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations.
Academic Committee:
Tilman Brück (IGZ), Philipp Grundmann (ATB), Anna-Katharina Hornidge (ZMT), Kerstin Nolte (GIGA), Lasse Loft (ZALF) and Achim Schlüter (ZMT)
Organizing Committee:
Tilman Brück (IGZ) and Marina Korn (IGZ)