Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI)
The Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI) is a Pan-European think tank exploring sustainable development options for European societies. It was set up in September 1999. As part of it SERI Germany e.V. was founded in 2005. As an virtual internet based institute we can select appropriate teams for each project from our pool of staff and members comprising a broad spectrum of qualifications.
SERI takes a comprehensive view of sustainability both empirically and in its policy recommendations. Thus SERI integrates the ecological objective to reduce environmental space use with elaborated economic, social and institutional sustainability strategies. SERI develops strategies on the macro, meso, micro and meta levels of economies/societies. SERI focuses the notion of environmental space (in terms of resources, energy and land-use) and the measurability of social and economic dimensions of SD. Indicator-based policies are therefore important for our recommendations. SERI looks at the impact of activities and policies in Europe on other parts of the world. SERI’s work is based on methodological pluralism.
Vita Sylvia Lorek
Sylvia Lorek is working as a researcher and policy consultant for sustainable consumption. She holds a Ph.D. in consumer economics from the University of Helsinki and is trained to work on the interlinkages of the individual micro-economic and the societal macroeconomic perspective in which the scientific and societal discourses about sustainable consumption take place.
Sylvia Lorek has worked as Project Coordinator at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. Since 2000 she is based at the Sustainable Europe Research Institute and is head of SERI Germany e.V. She is working on studies and as consultant for national and international organisations und institutes (among them EU, OECD, EEA and UNEP) and holds a lecturer position at the University of Applied Science in Münster.
Sylvia Lorek is an organising member of SCORAI Europe, the Global Research Forum on Sustainable Consumption and Production, the Society for the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production and the German branch of the Internal Federation of Home Economics (IFHE). She is experienced in the organisation of workshops and was member of the scientific committee for various conferences e.g. ERSCP, Degrowth.
Joachim H. Spangenberg
With a PhD in economics, but an academic background in natural sciences (MSc in biology, post-graduate in ecology) Joachim is an interdisciplinary researcher by education and dedication. He works professionally as a macro economist for the Sustainable Europe Research Institute Germany and the Helmholtz Centre for Environment Research on ecosystem services and their valuation, sustainable development strategies, ethics and indicators, environmental conflicts and on sustainable consumption and economic growth. His current projects are located in Vietnam, the Philippines and Europe, past project locations include South Africa, Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan and China. Before joining SERI he worked for the Wuppertal Institute, the IEEP and UNDP.
Joachim is not only representing interdisciplinary, but also transdisciplinary work. His voluntary activities included working with the IPCC (at ar 4), membership in the EU Economists’ Expert Group on Resource Efficiency (until 2014) and the OECD Task Force on Green Growth and Sustainable Development (until 2014). Currently he is member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, Steering Committee member of the Ecosystem Services Partnership ESP and board member of the International Sustainable Development Society ISDRS.
Gianluca Trotta
Contact: Gianluca.Trotta @seri.de
Gianluca Trotta is an energy researcher consultant at the Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI) Germany e.V. and he is currently working as Assistant Professor at the University of Vaasa (Faculty of Economics) in Finland. His main task is to work on a national project funded by the Academy of Finland to analyze the energy and financial literacy of the Finnish households. In addition, he is actively involved in the elaboration of proposals for the EU Horizon 2020 projects about energy system transformation and energy-responsible behaviors.
He holds a PhD in “Economics, Law and Institutions” from the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (Rome, Italy). His main research interests are: Energy Efficiency, Energy Behavior, Energy Policy. Given his educational background in Economics, Law and Political Science – Bachelor’s Degree, two Masters and PhD – with a special focus on energy and environmental issues, he is particularly able to analyze the energy topic by combining both the economic and policy approach and perspective. During his doctoral studies, he lived one year in Sweden working in the Centre for Environmental and Resource Economics (CERE) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Umeå, Sweden).
He is qualified for data management and its analysis by using different econometric approaches and some software – such as Stata, Limdep, R-programming, SPSS – and also to make attractive and communicable presentations by using the software “Prezi”. He speaks Italian, English, Spanish, and he has some basic knowledge of Swedish and French.