International aquaponic production has increased over the past decade, but less is known about research activities and production facilities operating in Europe. We conducted an online survey to get a better idea about research and production in Europe, focusing on five areas of aquaponics (i.e., demographics, facilities used, fish and crops produced, funding sources, and personal or company priorities for further development). The 68 respondents were distributed among 21 European countries, 43% were working at a university, and 19% were commercial producers. Only 11.8% of those surveyed had sold fish or plants in the past 12 months. Most respondents were male (66.2%) and had a post-graduate degree (91.7%). Facilities were generally new (74.5% constructed after 2010) and self-designed. Production figures were modest, with less than 10 respondents producing more than 1000 kg of fish or plants per year (mostly tilapia or catfish and herbs or lettuce). Systems were often funded by government grants (35.3%). The great majority of respondents (80.4%) stated that aquaponics was not their main source of income. Most respondents prioritized using aquaponics for educational purposes, while few (25%) used it to produce their own food or improve their health. Questions related to personal knowledge about aquaponics underlined the need for more training about fish diseases and plant pests.

Due to the cyclic or systemic nature of both aquaponics and organic production, organic certification appears to be a natural step for a researcher, system designer or commercial-oriented aquaponics producer to engage in. However, the underlying principles and justifications of aquaponics and organic production differ considerably between respectively a technological- and a soil-based understanding of nutrient cycles and long-term sustainability in food production. These principles are confirmed in both the organic regulation regime of the EU and USA, and presently leave the question ambiguously open as to whether aquaponics as a food production system can be recognized and certified as organic. Despite an openness in the organic regulation for new knowledge, adaptations and innovations, the organic sector itself has shown a reluctance to recognize more knowledge-based intensive speciality crops and technologies. This is particularly difficult with respect to small organic sub-sectors such as horticulture and aquaculture production. Both are very specific subsystems of the agricultural sector, where aquaponics potentially would belong at the intersection between organic greenhouse horticulture and organic aquaculture. Organically certified aquaponics would therefore need to establish a niche within the organic sector. So in order to move forward, there is a great need for a more serious but open-minded exchange and discussion among the aquaponics and organic sub-sectors themselves to explore the potential but also limitations of their respective production models. However, between the two food production systems, there should be room for debate with a view to finding new and feasible roles for aquaponics in the organic community.

The implementation of eco-innovations can be a strategy to combine economic benefit and reduce negative environmental impact. German greenhouse production is highly energy intensive, as heating and energy account for the second largest cost factor. Thus, the sector wants to develop and implement eco-innovations to speed up the process towards increased sustainability. In this paper, a sectoral systems of innovation (SSI) analysis is presented to identify and describe interrelated systemic barriers for developing and implementing such innovations into the sector. The SSI was used as an analytical framework, which enabled covering different system levels and components in the research in order to draw a comprehensive picture of this specific innovation environment. A mixed-methods, explorative approach was used: a literature analysis, followed by an expert workshop and semi-structured expert interviews, was conducted to understand the barriers for development and implementation of such innovations. A SWOT workshop assisted in generalizing results from selected innovation examples. A complementary two-wave Delphi study was used to identify innovation activity, important actors, policies and drivers within horticulture. Based on these data, we were able to identify different barrier-types, showing how they are interconnected and affect innovation processes increasing ecological modernization of the sector.

Serious Games (SG) have shown potential as transformative tools in sustainability research. Despite the diverse and widespread adoption of SG as multifunctional tools within collaborative forms of knowledge production, their contribution to transformative research processes is underexplored. Likewise, the selection, alignment, and integration of appropriate SG tailored to specific stages of a transformative research process lacks clear guidelines. To fill this gap, we aim to map the potential of SG in transformative research. We propose to facilitate the assessment of SG alignment and to guide their integration within a transformative research process based on three dimensions: SG complexity levels, SG collaborative engagement levels, and generic stages of transformative research processes. This study explores and organizes the space of potential uses of SG in transformative research based on the three aforementioned dimensions. It provides guidelines to facilitate the assessment of each SG's suitability and its integration within the transformative research process. It operationalizes the proposed conceptual mapping and guidelines with the help of two SG examples. Future work should empirically validate the approach across diverse contexts and address scalability, long-term impacts, and ethical considerations in resource-constrained settings.

Der 2011 gegründete Verbund für Nachhaltige Wissenschaft (NaWis) strebt die Stärkung transdisziplinärer Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften an Hochschulen und Forschungsinstituten an. Mit der Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde wird die NaWis-Runde seit September 2021 durch eine Institution gestärkt, der wie kaum einer anderen deutschen Hochschule der Nachhaltigkeitsgedanke ins Stammbuch geschrieben steht.

Vegetable production networks are threatened by the effects of climate change, potentially leading to loss of harvest in the case of extreme weather events. The local expansion and adaptation of vegetable production are seen as key strategies for enhancing self-sufficiency and climate-friendly diets. While there is knowledge about climate measures at the farm level, further research is needed to understand ways of affectedness and measures from farm to table. This study aims at generating systems knowledge about vegetable production networks in the context of climate change and possible future trajectories. It proceeds from the perspectives of the network actors to explore their experiences of climate-related risks and the strategies they use to mitigate and adapt. The study is being conducted in North Hesse, Germany, which is not a traditional production cluster, yet it produces the most organic vegetables in the state of Hesse. Data were collected through expert interviews, participant observation of relevant events and a validation workshop. We used Adele Clarke’s “situational analysis” to map the involved human and non-human elements, discourses as well as spatial, symbolic and political elements. In North Hesse, organic vegetables are primarily cultivated on small farms and market gardens, with direct-to-consumer sales. While farmers actively adapt by changing their cultivation practices, this topic is of minor importance to actors in logistics, processing and marketing. Further development of the network is constrained by weak cross-sectoral organization, a challenging politico-economic environment and low visibility in local policy agendas.