The 2004 Berlin Conference is organised by the Environmental Policy Research Centre of the Freie Universität Berlin on behalf of the Environmental Policy and Global Change section of the German Political Science Association (DVPW). Additional support is provided by the Global Governance Project.

The 2004 Berlin Conference is the fourth in a series of conferences on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change that started in 2001. The following topics have been addressed so far:

2001 Berlin Conference:
„Global Environmental Change and the Nation State“

2002 Berlin Conference:
„Knowledge for the Sustainability Transition – The Challenge for Social Science”

2003 Berlin Conference:
„Governance for Industrial Transformation“
 

Typical features of the Berlin Conferences are:

• Political and social scientists are invited to discuss a specific environmental policy topic. Priority is given to “real world problems” rather than scientific problems in order to stimulate multi- and interdisciplinary approaches and in order to stimulate an exchange with policy makers.
• Invitations for contributions are spread internationally, primarily among political scientists. The conference call is, however, open to neighbouring disciplines, with one specific discipline that is primarily addressed for an exchange. Therefore, specific mailing lists for these disciplines are covered as well (2001: law, 2002: sociology; 2003: economy, 2004: law),
• On each of the conferences between 60 and 120 papers were presented, with 6-12 plenary lectures and about 100-200 participants from 25-35 different countries for the two-day event,
• On the basis of an anonymus review of submitted abstracts, 80-100 speakers are selected and invited.
• High-ranking scientists are invited as keynote speakers (among them so far: John Schellnhuber, Oran Young, Rajendra Pachauri, Coleen H. Vogel, Sheila Jasanoff, Arild Underdal, Peter H. Sand, Nicholas Ashford, Pier Vellinga and others).
• Politicians and govenment officials are invited for discussion (among them so far: Klaus Töpfer, Jürgen Trittin, Christian Patermann, Rainer Baake and others).
• We try to organise travel grants for speakers from developing countries and Eastern Europe as well as for junior scientists to make their participation possible.
• After the conference the contributions are peer reviewed and published first as proceedings in form of an edited internet publication. In a second step, the most representative contributions are published as a book or as a special issue of a scientific journal.

The Berlin Conferences aim at:

• establishing and developing a renowned institution for international exchange among social scientists dealing with Global Change
• supporting exchange especially with scientists from developing countries
• transferring international research agendas to Germany and Europe
• stimulating problem-oriented and interdisciplinary research by organising communication between political science and its neigbour disciplines as well as between scientists and decision makers
• creating internationally recognised publications.