Regional Sustainability: Applied Ecological Economics Bridging the Gap Between Natural and Social Sciences

Founded in 1991, the UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig­ Halle was the first and only research institute in the Hermann von Helm­ holtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF) to be exclusively dedicated to environmental research. Nowadays environmental research calls for interdisciplinary and applied approaches. At the UFZ, landscape­ based research and environmental medicine are combined within interdisci­ plinary research topics with social sciences and ecological economics. Economic and sociological environmental research at the UFZ is geared towards the model of sustainable development. Research is currently fo­ cused at a local and a regional level. In order to ensure the transferability of regional solutions, work is pursued against the background and in awareness of global ecological interrelations as well as national and international con­ ditions. In July 1998, the UFZ's Department of Ecological Economics and Envi­ ronmental Sociology organised an international UFZ Summer School in Leipzig, Germany, dedicated to "Ecological Economics and Regional Sustainability - New Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Research?" Its focus was on the scientific exchange of ideas and experience related to regional sus­ tainable development. The papers concentrated on innovative approaches towards bridging the gap between the natural and the social sciences in ap­ plied research projects.