Twenty-five years of ZEF – looking back and ahead

Established at the University of Bonn, ZEF, one of whose activities is to focus on doctoral programmes for students from all over the world, was created in the nineteen-nineties, at a time when the Federal Government was moving from Bonn to Berlin, Germany’s former capital, and via what is known as the Bonn-Berlin Act, Bonn itself was designated to become a centre for global issues.

In an interview he gave on the occasion of the centre’s jubilee, ZEF founder Professor Joachim von Braun described the setting up of ZEF as follows:

“ZEF’s initial research agenda comprised research on development, change and capacity building. The latter was implemented through the doctoral studies programme, designed as an integral part of ZEF’s research agenda. The ambition was to position ZEF on the international map of leading development research institutes and think tanks. 

“Working with and achieving sound theoretical underpinnings, a relevant empirical basis, as well as implementing cutting-edge methodologies, all applied to inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, were among ZEF’s strategy. Thematically, ZEF was positioned around the key issues of poverty and inequality, environmental and ecological problems, gender, behavioural change, governance and conflicts.”

ZEF research – centred on sustainability and interdisciplinarity

In addition to the doctoral programmes, ZEF scientists and scholars are above all active in interdisciplinary research. Focal areas comprise agriculture and nutrition, poverty and inequality, land use conflicts and nature, climate and health, capacity development and South-South cooperation. Currently, around 40 senior researchers and 120 junior researchers are conducting research at ZEF, most of them in the context of a doctoral programme. Over the last 25 years, ZEF has implemented roughly 100 research programmes in more than 80 countries, funded by about 40 donor organisations. 

ZEF’s doctoral programme can be regarded as unique in Germany. As von Braun explains, while there are numerous other English-language doctoral programmes bearing on international issues, what is different in the ZEF programme is that “it combines and connects bottom-up perspectives from each new doctoral student with the institute’s overall strategic orientation. Transdisciplinary research and advanced methods serve sustainable transformation of economic, social and ecological systems and can pave the way toward circular and more bio-based economies.”

International conference – development research for the 21st century

Looking back at 25 years of international research and looking ahead into the 21st century formed the conference cornerstones in Bonn. In his brief presentation, ZEF Director Professor Matin Qaim emphasised the centre’s strong focus on interdisciplinarity and sustainability which its research focuses on. The research foci rested on three pillars – economic and technological change, nutrition and planetary health, ecology and natural resource management – Qaim explained. 

Here, he pointed to three major projects ZEF has played a crucial role in with its research:

• the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum (ECCFF) in Ethiopia
• the West African Science Service Center on Climate change and Adapted Land Use ( WASCAL)
• the Cooperation Programme with the Brazilian research institute EMBRAPA

During its 25-plus years of activity, 479 students had done their PhDs, having come from around 80 countries. Seventy-three per cent of funding had been provided by external donors, Qaim reported.

Participants in a panel debate had a look at what the future held. There was agreement on the need to internationalise research, i.e. that exchange between research institutions in the North and the South had to be intensified while simultaneously becoming more interdisciplinary – with a focus on sustainability and environment. 

Professor Shenggen Fan, Professor at the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy at China Agricultural University in Beijing, stressed the considerable development potential African countries held, for there, thanks to improved education and training in research, new prospects had emerged for North-South cooperation in the fields of infrastructure, health, food security, etc.

Short-term government policies and, as was the case in Germany, focusing on national research projected, counteracted such opportunities, Professor Anna-Katharina Hornidge,  Director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), complained. “We need more cross-country and interdisciplinary projects like WASCAL in West Africa,” Hornidge stressed in Bonn.

Professor Ernest Aryeetey, Secretary General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), from Ghana, pointed to the need for improved training and further education focused on sustainability. The African education system had to be fundamentally reviewed, with schoolbooks being adapted to current conditions and contemporary knowledge impartment. Training programmes had to be oriented more to jobs on offer, as was the case, for example, in India, where they were also being tailored to the requirements of employment in the “Green sector”, Aryeetey noted.

All the panellists at the jubilee conference attributed overarching importance to improving education and training options for the young generation at all levels, both politically and in terms of the subjects involved. Here, ZEF’s doctoral programme could make a significant contribution, they stressed.

Angelika Wilcke, editor, Rural21, Frankfurt/Main, Germany