DIE deepens cooperation on sustainability research with partners from rising powers

DIE deepens cooperation on sustainability research with partners from rising powers

Press Release 17 December 2019

Bonn, 17 December 2019. With support of the European Union, The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) is intensifying its long-term cooperation with seven research institutions from Europe, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa. The new so-called PRODIGEES project, which will be jointly lead by DIE and the Mexican Instituto Mora will be researching the positive effects of digitalisation on the environment, economy, governance and society throughout 2023. The cooperation is funded by Horizon 2020, the EU’s current framework programme for funding research, and represents the first such project in which DIE will be the central coordinator. 

“Digitalisation is an immense challenge – not just for industrialised countries “, said DIE’s Acting Director Prof. Dr. Imme Scholz on the occasion of the imminent project start in January 2020. This international research cooperation was developed by a series of conferences of the Managing Global Governance (MGG) Programme in 2018, where the interconnections of sustainability and digitalisation were discussed. The MGG Programme, which is organised by DIE, is dedicated to various training and dialog formats that are developing analyses of and solutions to global challenges. The MGG’s network is comprised of more than 100 partner institutions and has more than 350 alumni that are working in government, research and civil society institutions and the private sector in rising powers and Europe. 

“We want to build on the positive experiences of the MGG network and engage with our global partners in an exchange on the chances for and challenges to sustainable development. New technologies do provide us with new opportunities and we want to develop joint solutions,” said Scholz. In addition to DIE and the Instituto Mora, the project group includes the University of Hamburg (UHAM), the Italian Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), the Indonesian Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Stellenbosch University (SU) in South Africa, the Brazilian Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) as well as the Indian think tank Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS). Altogether the undertaking provides a frame for more than 80 individual research projects that are exploring different aspects of digitalisation.  

PRODIGEES (short for Promoting Research on Digitalisation in Emerging Powers and Europe towards Sustainable Development) will support the secondment of researchers at partner institutions and organise seminars and workshops in the partner countries. The official kick-off event is planned for late March in Berlin. The results of the cooperation will be compiled as Digital Knowledge Products that will provide tangible insights into the solutions developed by the research teams.