Ortwin Renn

Ortwin Renn is a scientific director at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. He also directs the non-profit company DIALOGIK, a research institute for the investigation of communication and participation processes. Renn’s main research activities at IASS focus on the role of systemic risks as threats to sustainable development, and the structures and processes for sustainable transformations in Germany and beyond. Specifically, he investigates transitions related to energy systems and energy governance. He is a member of several boards, including the National Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China and the Governing Board of the German Academy of Science and Engineering. He served on the panel on “Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making” of the US National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC (from 2005 to 2007) and on the German Federal Government’s Commission on Energy Ethics after Fukushima (2011). Renn’s most prominent monograph is the book Risk Governance (Earthscan 2008).

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