About us

Transformative research for sustainable development

The Research Institute for Sustainability conducts research with the goal of understanding, advancing, and guiding processes of societal change towards sustainable development. Our research approach is transformative, transdisciplinary, and co-creative.

Transformative sustainability research aims to bring together all relevant forms of knowledge generated both within and outside science in order to understand the problems of sustainable development, identify appropriate solutions, and support their implementation in cooperation with relevant actors and affected communities. RIFS involves these stakeholders in its transdisciplinary and co-creative research processes from the outset and does not view them as mere addressees of its research findings.

RIFS conducts research on three overarching themes: Sustainability Transformations and Society, Transforming Human-Earth Interactions, Advancing Transdisciplinarity and Co-Creation. These activities are complemented by a Fellow Programme, which fosters global dialogue and connects researchers working in the field of transformative research for sustainable development.

RIFS in the Helmholtz Association

RIFS belongs to the Helmholtz Association, embedded into the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences) and receives institutional funding in accordance with the terms of the Helmholtz Association. The Institute independently pursues its research and advisory activities within the thematic framework of the Helmholtz Association’s Program-oriented Funding and the statutes of the GFZ and RIFS.

In order to support its activities in transdisciplinary research, consulting and policy advice, which require close engagement with political and societal actors, the Institute also maintains internal units for press and communications, event management, and strategic science management.

Scientific Directors

The Scientific Directors lead the Institute and are responsible for its research programme and cooperation with actors from policymaking and public administration, the business community, and civil society.

Advisory Board

An Advisory Board supports the Institute and its Scientific Directors by reviewing research outcomes and developing recommendations for the Institute’s strategic development. This body will be reconstituted shortly.

Internal Organisation

Research activities at RIFS are grouped into three overarching research themes. Each research theme is represented on the Research Integration Committee (RIC) by two Speakers. The RIC advises the Scientific Directors on research planning and strategic matters. In addition to the Scientific Directors, it is composed of the Theme Speakers, the heads of the Fellow Programme and Press & Communications, and the science management team.

Organisational chart

Equality

Promoting equality of opportunity is crucial to fostering a sustainable and fair society. RIFS is inspired by the vision of a world in which all employees enjoy equal opportunities and a good work-life balance and in which diversity is acknowledged and accepted.

The GFZ and RIFS are committed to achieving gender parity across their workforce and actively promote equality in the workplace. Increasing the share of female employees, especially in management positions, is a central objective of this policy. Efforts to improve employees’ work-life balance through flexible working arrangements and other measures are defining aspects of the Institute's workplace culture. Gender equality, diversity, and discrimination are treated as cross-cutting issues at RIFS and play a role in all relevant strategic decisions and processes.

The GFZ Equal Opportunities Plan will apply to RIFS from 1 January 2023.

Our history - The IASS and more

In 2007, the Nobel Laureate Symposium “Global Sustainability – A Nobel Cause” was held in Potsdam under the patronage of Chancellor Angela Merkel and attended by a host of internationally renowned scientists and political figures. The symposium’s widely regarded outcome document, the Potsdam Memorandum, called for a joint effort to tap into “all sources of innovation and invention” in an effort to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century and establish a new “global contract” to promote sustainable societies in the age of the Anthropocene.

In the wake of this symposium, in 2008, the German Science Alliance developed a concept for a novel research institute, the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), the predecessor to today’s Research Institute For Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (RIFS). The IASS was founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of the Federal Government, the State of Brandenburg and the research organisations of the Science Alliance. Potsdam was chosen as the location for the new institute due to its outstanding research landscape, including institutions such as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, as well as its close proximity to policymakers and political institutions, media organisations, and chambers and associations in Berlin.

Following two periods of project funding and its successful evaluation by the German Science and Humanities Council in 2020, the institute will join the Helmholtz Association from 2023. It will operate under the new name “Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam” (RIFS) as a part of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences from 1 January 2023. This enables the Institute's scientists to continue their transformative research supported by a permanent funding stream.

Location

The Federal State of Brandenburg made the premises of the Kleist Villa on Berliner Straße 130 and the office building on Helmholtzstrasse 5 available to RIFS.