Energy, Climate and Sustainability
Research
Sustainability means making provision for the future. Our funding generates innovative solutions and new pathways to the sustainable design of industry and society, making them fit for the future.
Related topics
Opportunities
- We support industry through research and innovation in transitioning to renewable energy and non-fossil resources. This protects the climate, conserves resources and strengthens the competitiveness of German industry.
- Our funding helps to improve forecasting extreme weather events such as heat or torrential rainfall and to develop, together with local players, suitable adaptation and risk preparedness measures and enable successful climate action.
- Our commitment to the preservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of its ecosystem services provides practitioners with the know-how and tools to halt biodiversity loss and protect ecosystems over the long term.
- The funding we provide aims to generate new mobility schemes that enable sustainable, reliable and affordable mobility for all and also guarantee health and safety - in cities and rural areas.
How do we ensure energy supply that climate-friendly, safe and economical? How do we protect the climate and take effective measures to combat climate change and its consequences? How do we make urban and rural areas more resilient to heat, torrential rain and storms? How do we become more resource-efficient and less dependent on raw material imports? How do we adapt our farming practices to the challenges of climate change, biodiversity protection and security of supply? How do we live sustainable lives in cities and regions?
The answers to these and many other questions stem from our funding for energy, climate and sustainability. The implementation of the Research for Sustainability strategy (FONA) plays a central role in this context. Beyond this, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) also invests in battery research and is considerably expanding the efforts made for decades to support fusion research – because openness to different technologies ensures our own freedom of action and that of generations to come.
Research for Sustainable Development
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The FONA strategy, published in 2020, provides the framework up to 2025 for research on future-oriented topics of high relevance. These include hydrogen, the decarbonization of industry, circular economy, bioeconomy, the protection of biodiversity, climate change adaptation, urban development and the sustainable use of the seas and oceans. This is how the BMBF accelerates the research, development and use of technological and social innovations that are driving the sustainable development of industry and society. The FONA strategy is geared towards the global Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and sets out how to achieve these sustainability goals through research. It thus also plays a major part in the implementation of the Future Research and Innovation Strategy.
The digital transformation has enormous potential to support and speed up sustainable development. Digital applications can make processes faster, smarter and more efficient. The BMBF's Natürlich.Digital.Nachhaltig. action plan was the first to combine the two great transformations ‘sustainability’ and ‘digitalization’. The reciprocal effects of this twin transition was the subject of a systematic evaluation in the metastudy “Sustainability effects of digitalization”, commissioned by the BMBF. The aim is to identify and promote digital sustainability innovations with the greatest impact potential for sustainable development.
Digital Sustainability Innovations
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The Digital Sustainability Innovations initiative of the BMBF builds on the Natürlich.Digital.Nachhaltig. action plan and develops a funding priority that links digitalization and sustainability. The initiative is anchored in both the Federal Government’s Digital Strategy and the Future Research and Innovation Strategy. The funding covers a range of measures to research and utilize innovative digital applications to advance sustainability. Our goal is to ensure that digitalization – in addition to its many economic benefits – serves the people, society and the preservation of natural resources.
Editorial deadline for this text: 01.11.2024