The WaterPower team and the Governance and Sustainability Lab were happy to welcome Dr. Barbara Brandl for an introductory meeting and lively discussions on 25th April. Dr. Barbara Brandl is a post-doctoral researcher at the Trier University and currently works for the chair of Economic Sociology. During her PhD, Dr. Brandl was part of the international doctoral programme “Environment and Society” at the Rachel Carson Center at LMU Munich. Her PhD thesis and past research focused on the topics of knowledge and capital accumulation as well as the influence of institutional arrangements on innovation in the realms of Green Biotechnology. During the colloquium, Dr. Brandl introduced the team to her PhD research and major findings. In the following discussion, many interfaces with WaterPower’s research emerged. For example, the question of how to govern and initiate innovations for societal transformations with regard to actor and institutional arrangements was discussed. The WaterPower team was especially happy to use this opportunity to meet Dr. Brandl as a way of connecting with fellow scholars at the Trier University. 

The WaterPower Team, supported by the members of the Governance and Sustainability Lab, came together for a two-day publication workshop at the end of April. The workshop focused on syntheses of the different sub-projects of WaterPower, with the goal of appearing in different publications. Employing the method of ‘world-café’, the team members contributed to the overall topics water, urbanization, and urban futures of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. Inspired by the various insights each team member brought to the table and the lovely spring weather in the city of Trier, the team established different publication ideas to be realized in a writing period in the next month.