Sustainable Urban Transition Paths in China

Recently, the Wuppertal Institute received a three-year grant from DFG (German Research Foundation) for Sino-German joint interdisciplinary research on "Exploring and Assessing Sustainable Transition in Chinese and German urban areas" (EAST). The EAST project aims to study urban transition pathways with a special focus on energy, transport, and buildings and sector coupling and to evaluate the transition pathways in both Chinese and German cities, to understand similarities and differences of sustainable urban transition pathways in both countries, and to provide evidence-based policy recommendations for sustainable urban transition in China and Germany. In order to achieve these objectives, EAST project will enrich both qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches of sustainable urban transition research and apply these approaches on a set of case studies in Chinese and German cities.

"The project enables an intensive exchange of scientific knowledge between highly recognized scientific institutions in one of the most relevant areas considering the constantly increasing population in urban settlements," says Prof. Dr. Manfred Fischedick, the Principal Investigator of EAST and Vice President of the Wuppertal Institute.
The project is rooted in a strong Sino-German academic collaboration across several leading institutions and different disciplines. The project will be led by the Wuppertal Institute and Beijing Institute of Technology. Other partners include the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission and Tsinghua University in China.