News Archive

Chinwe Ifejika Speranza, Professor of Geography and Sustainable Development, current director of the Institute of Geography and Board member of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) has obtained an ERC Consolidator Grant for a project on «Tropical forest patches under pressure: Dynamics, functions and sustainable management in agricultural landscapes of the West African forest and savannah zones (SUSTAINFORESTS)». The five-year project will analyse the roles of forest patches in the highly fragmented agricultural landscapes of the rainforest and savannah zones of the West African countries, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon. SUSTAINFORESTS examines why forest patches persist, how they maintain ecosystem services and livelihood functions, and under what conditions they can have a sustainable future.

The Barbara-Lischetti-Price 2020 goes to Dr. Timothy Adams in appreciation of his dissertation: «Large-Scale Land Investments, Institutional Change and Gender Relations: Land Investments in the Sugar Cane Sector of Malawi».

Heike Mayer and Miriam Hug wrote a blog entry for the European Geosciences Union (EGU) about their experiences developing a hybrid format for the economic geography field course. Students developed innovative learning outcomes such as reports and films for this course.

The Institute supports the Better Science Initiative, which calls for a rethinking in academia towards more sustainability, diversity and equal opportunity. We invite other institutes to also sign up and to implement the 10 calls to action: betterscience.ch/en/calls-to-action/#/

In March, the GIUB Equal Opportunity Commission conducted a survey among all employees on working conditions and care responsibilities during the Covid-19 emergency. The results show that GIUB employees have to reconcile the burden of work and caring responsibilities, which results in extraordinary burdens and stressful situations. Employees are also concerned about the impact of the crisis on their career. The Institute Council makes recommendations to help working groups and researchers in this situation. The results and recommendations are published on this page.