On May 22nd, Prof. Kopp opened the conference "Sustainable Campus Thuringia" which took place at the University of Jena, Germany. In his key note address, Tom Kopp gave an overview of the concept of Experimental Organisational Development and presented various applications, including the projects RAUM (Rooms, Work, Environment, Co-Creation) and Wo.W (Wellbeing in Science) which were and are conducted within the higher education system in Germany.

In collaboration with the Plural Economics department at the University of Siegen, the chair organized a conference on the sustainable transformation of private and public organizations. The event began with keynote speeches by Dr. Maike Gossen (TU Berlin) on sustainability strategies for companies and Prof. Dr. Thomas Kopp, who presented a practice-oriented case study on experimental organizational development. A discussion with participants followed, providing an opportunity for exchange and reflection. The morning concluded with networking sessions, allowing participants to connect and share ideas.

In the afternoon, the conference focused on two thematic areas. The first explored the sustainable transformation of public institutions, featuring key insights from the Lantern project. Simultaneously, participants engaged in discussions on alternative economic models. Within this session, Hannes Wender and Dr. Dr. Johannes Halbe from the University of Osnabrück examined the complexities of regional transformation processes, highlighting obstacles and detours. Jana Schmidt from the University of Siegen presented the Nascent project on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), while Elena Schiff contributed a practical perspective by showcasing the work of IGLU gUG in Cologne. These interdisciplinary insights and hands-on approaches provided valuable contributions to the sustainable development of organizations and economic structures.

Students from the University of Siegen and the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) followed Ms. Riza Mathew's lecture on urban gardening. A series of digital participation formats allowed students from Germany and India to interact with each other. The lecture was the kick-off for the second year of international digital teaching within the ICODICE project.

The ICODICE (Internationally connected digital classrooms education) project of the University of Siegen and KAU designs courses in teacher training and makes digital teaching methods tangible based on the topics of global inequality, socio-ecological sustainability and climate justice from the perspectives of the Global North and South.

Following the kind invitation of our colleague, Prof. Vivian Wei Huang at the Swedish Agricultural University (SLU) in Uppsala, Prof. Kopp presented his ongoing work at SLU's monthly research seminar. The title of the presentation was "The Effects of Digital Yield Monitoring on Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States" and is based on joint work with Markus Nabernegg (University of Siegen), Robert Finger and Robert Huber (both ETH Zürich), and Rich Sexton (UC Davis).

As part of the LANTERN project, we are currently conducting the workshop "Wellbeing in Academia" (Wohlbefinden im Wissenschaftsbetrieb, Wo.W). In a workshop, led by Niklas Heiland and Severin Caspari from Heiland & Caspari (www.prozessbegleitung.de), we co-created a prototype for a new element in the onboarding process of newly appointed professors at the University of Siegen. Details on the workshop can be found here: www.hochschulen-transformieren.de/wow

The Annual conference of the Agricultural Economics Society (AES) took place in Bordeaux, France. Prof. Kopp presented the poster "Reducing Negative Effects of Risk Aversion on Farming Outcomes: Evidence for Systematic External Selection into Profitable Contracts", based on joint work with Alwin Dsouza (New Mexico State) and Ashok K. Mishra (Arizona State). The Poster won the society's Best Poster Award!

The DIKULE project organized the DIKULE-Symposium in Bamberg, Germany. Prof. Kopp presented a poster on our teaching project "ICODICE", in which students from two German Universities and Kerala Agricultural University in India participate in a joint module. The project is conducted in collaboration with Prof. Archana Raghavan Sathyan and Ms. Aswathy Rani (both at KAU) and Mr. Claudius Engeling and Ms. Ayça Akçakoca (both University of Siegen).

On April 1, 2025, Thomas Kopp started a new appointment as full professor for  Global Trade and World Food Security at Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen. Once a new website is available, the link will be shared here.

Several members of the LANTERN project attended the BMBFs Symposium of the funding line Sustainability in Science" (SiSi) in Eberswalde to present the current developments in the different work packages of this project. Further details can be found on the project's website:  www.hochschulen-transformieren.de

As part of the chair’s ICODICE project, our research group member and ICODICE project coordinator Claudius Engeling visited the collaboration partner in this project, the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU). During the visit, Claudius Engeling met with project collaborators Prof. Dr. Archana Sathyan and Ms. Aswathy Rani to discuss plans for upcoming project activities in the next year. The team also marked the completion of the first ICODICE semester, distributing participation certificates to the students involved. Additionally, Claudius Engeling shared insights on international digital teaching with teaching staff and students of KAU.

In January, the LANTERN consortium under the leadership of Uni Siegen met to discuss the latest project developments. The consortium, together with partners from Osnabrück University and Münster University, discussed ideas for the follow-up project. At the same time, consortium members participated in the online-conference "Appetite for the Academic Donut ".

Inga Statemann, a PhD student in our group, presented her work "Grasping Sustainability Culture in Universities - A multi-Method Approach to Define and Understand Key Elements" at the online-conference "Appetite for the Academic Donut", organized by our LANTERN project and the University of Münster.