Stakeholder Dialogue and Science Communication

Throughout my career, I have actively contributed to the economic and societal valorization of research by translating academic insights into practical applications as well as co-creating knowledge through multi-stakeholder dialogue formats. In the past 15 years, I have convened more than 100 stakeholder dialogue workshops in more than 20 countries.
Key outcomes include:
1. Strategic Partnerships and Policy Influence:
Co-developed the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Energy in the Philippines, which facilitated capacity-building programs for over 200 government officials, energy experts, and local leaders in rural communities. The program, funded by the European Commission through the ASEP-CELLs Project in the Philippines, established cooperation between several universities and research institutes in the Philippines and Germany to provide practical training in renewable energy technologies, directly empowering rural stakeholders. This initiative contributed to the development and implementation of national renewable energy policies, fostering inclusive and community-based energy transitions.
Contributed to the establishment of Indonesia’s National Platform on Sustainability Standards under the EFTA-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement by organizing stakeholder dialogue meetings involving 50+ public and private sector stakeholders. These dialogues facilitated the creation of an interest group that actively informed the Indonesian government, through the Indonesian Standardization Body, during the EFTA-Indonesia negotiations. This collaboration enhanced sustainability compliance and aligned national standards with international trade agreements, fostering long-term economic and environmental benefits.
2. Knowledge Exchange and Stakeholder Impact:
Led workshops under the SHAPE project, engaging over 300 stakeholders across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and incorporating insights from expert interviews and consultations with over 200 stakeholders across 30 countries from 2019 to 2024. These efforts culminated in actionable sustainability roadmaps, now integrated into climate resilience planning in Brazil and South Africa. The recommendations emphasized the need for a cohesive theoretical framework and comprehensive social science engagement to refine sustainability tools. A key outcome was the application of the Sustainable Development Pathways (SDPs), a scenario set developed to address critiques from social sciences, ensuring more inclusive and robust planning for global sustainability transitions.
Co-organized multi-stakeholder conventions, including the International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards (attended by 400 participants in India and 240 in Brazil), which directly influenced sustainability policies in high-emitting sectors. These conventions facilitated the adoption and implementation of sustainability standards by private sector actors, driving measurable improvements in corporate practices and aligning industry operations with global environmental and social benchmarks.
3. Capacity Building and Training:
Designed and implemented the Managing Global Governance Academy, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The program trained over 100 emerging leaders from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa in climate justice and sustainability. Many alumni now hold influential policy roles in their respective countries, shaping national and international sustainability agendas and advancing equitable development practices.
Developed the curriculum for the Master’s in Sustainable Energy at UTECH, Jamaica, resulting in the program’s adoption across CARICOM and the training of 300+ students and professionals.
4. Economic Contributions and Intellectual Property:
Co-authored project proposals that secured funding for sustainability initiatives, including €3 million for the ASEP-CELLs Project in the Philippines, which fostered partnerships with local businesses to develop clean energy solutions.
Published intellectual outputs, which has been cited in over 800 academic and policy publications and incorporated into policy frameworks by international organizations such as UNCTAD and UNIDO. These outputs have directly informed sustainability strategies contributing to actionable pathways for achieving climate resilience and sustainable development goals.
5. Training Nuclear Test Inspectors for the CTBTO
Collaborating with international leaders and technical experts, I played a key role in developing a comprehensive training curriculum for inspectors under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). This program equipped inspectors with the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to strengthen global monitoring systems and ensure compliance with international disarmament agreements. The initiative significantly contributed to global peace and security by bolstering the enforcement of nuclear non-proliferation measures. Reflecting on this experience, I contributed insights to the book chapter The Case of Arcania: Perspectives in Point-of-Entry Negotiations in Banning the Bang or the Bomb? Negotiating the Nuclear Test Ban Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2014). This publication explored negotiation dynamics within the context of the CTBTO’s work, highlighting the intricate interplay of technical expertise and diplomatic negotiation. This achievement underscores my capacity to bridge technical training and academic research, contributing to both global security and scholarly discourse on disarmament.
These achievements demonstrate my commitment to creating measurable societal and economic value by integrating research into actionable solutions that address global challenges.
Upcoming Event
Co-LABorate 2 Stakeholder Workshop:
Preserving and Transferring Indigenous Knowledge in a Digital World
10-12 March 2025
Room: 243
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg
Workshop Concept and Programme
Background
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) define "indigenous" as referring to people, cultures, and communities native to a particular geographical region, having existed there for a long period before the arrival of outside populations or influences. Key aspects of the UN’s definition include unique traditions, languages, and social systems that are distinct from those of the society-at-large, as well as a deep connection to their ancestral lands.
In the context of global sustainability transformation, there is a need to reclaim—or decolonize—the meaning of "indigenous" and "traditional" and how they relate to human flourishing and sustainability. Indigenous communities are often perceived as traditional, backward-looking, and underdeveloped, partly because of their historical marginalization, lack of access to modern infrastructure and education, and the preservation of their traditions and rituals (Smith, 2012, Escobar, 1995).
Traditional and indigenous wisdoms offer holistic views of care, integrating community, environment, and spirituality (Storm, 2021, Chang and Bai, 2016), which can effectively complement modernist views for example on technological innovation and climate protection. Furthermore, indigenous wisdom is not homogenous, and there are significant differences between the bodies of knowledge of indigenous communities. In their own way, diverse indigenous perspectives challenge Western paradigms by emphasizing relationships and interconnectedness, presenting care as an all-encompassing practice rooted in the symbiosis of human and natural systems.
To fully harness the rich knowledge of indigenous communities, it is essential for us to navigate with them the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by today’s rapidly evolving digital age. Historically marginalized, these communities often face limited access to modern technologies, which can deepen their exclusion. Moreover, the digital era introduces new risks, including the misappropriation and exploitation of their traditions, rituals, and practices, adding to the injustices they already endure.
At the same time, the digital age offers unprecedented opportunities for Indigenous peoples to preserve, revitalize, and share their cultural heritage while also gaining new tools for education, economic development, and self-determination. By embracing digital platforms, Indigenous communities can document and disseminate their languages, stories, and traditional practices, ensuring they are passed down to future generations. Moreover, digital tools provide a means to connect with a global audience, fostering greater understanding and collaboration across cultures.
Goals and objectives:
The main goal of the workshop is to identify and address the essential challenges and opportunities for global transformation towards sustainability through the preservation and dissemination of indigenous knowledge in a digital age. In addition, the workshop aims to recognize and honor indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing.
To achieve these goals, the workshop adopts innovative dialogue and knowledge transfer formats inspired by indigenous communities. These approaches foster active listening, respect for diverse perspectives, integration of personal experiences and traditional knowledge, consensus-building, and a strong emphasis on relationships.
The workshop brings together leading scholars, practitioners and representatives of indigenous communities to answer important questions:
Session 1: State of the Art: Current Challenges and Opportunities for Indigenous Knowledge in the Digital Age
In the digital age, indigenous knowledge faces several challenges and opportunities. Challenges include lack of reliable access to the internet and computers, and digital literacy education as well as cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. Opportunities include preservation and revitalization through digitization of traditional knowledge, oral histories, and cultural artifacts as well as community empowerment through digital storytelling and advocacy in social media.
In this panel, we want to set the stage for all discussions. We call on representatives from various indigenous communities to present the current challenges their communities are confronted with and which opportunities they see for preservation through the integration of indigenous knowledge with modern (digital) technology.
· What are the current challenges that confront indigenous communities and how does digitalization exacerbate the negative effects of their marginalization?
· What are the knowledge tools used to record, disseminate and preserve stories, myths, traditions and practices that embody indigenous people’s wisdom?
· How can digital platforms be designed to facilitate the intergenerational transfer of indigenous wisdom within communities?
Session 2: Indigenous Knowledge as Enabler of Global Sustainability Transformation
Indigenous communities, with their deep-rooted knowledge of sustainable living, are key drivers of global sustainability. Their traditional ecological practices offer vital insights into resource management, biodiversity conservation, and climate resilience. As guardians of some of the planet's most biodiverse regions, Indigenous peoples are leading efforts to protect our global commons. By blending indigenous wisdom with modern sustainability practices, they are shaping a more sustainable and equitable future, making them essential partners in addressing global environmental challenges
In this session, we explore how indigenous knowledge can offer new and alternative imaginaries on social institutions - politics, economics, technology, religion, gender, and education - that underpin contemporary societies, which are key to global sustainability transformation. In this regard, we want to ask the following questions:
· Which alternative ways of seeing and designs of social institutions are offered by indigenous knowledge that can help dismantle path dependencies and dominance structures such as toxic hypermasculinity?
· How can indigenous knowledge systems inform and enhance modern technological, entrepreneurial, educational, and scientific practices to promote global sustainability transformation?
Session 3: Strategies for Addressing New and Old (In)Justices to Indigenous People
Indigenous people around the world face a variety of injustices, often stemming from historical colonization, systemic discrimination, and ongoing marginalization. The emergence of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence may endanger their cultural preservation through language loss, and cultural appropriation. Furthermore, new challenges are emerging in the digital age as some existing guardrails for the preservation of indigenous knowledge are removed. At the same time, digital innovation can offer opportunities to help indigenous people achieve representation, autonomy, economic inclusion and adaptation to climate change.
In this session, we focus on the interface between the public and private sector to identify good practices from various stakeholders to address injustices to indigenous communities. These practices include capacity building, policy and legal reforms, fair business models and community-led initiatives.
· Which new injustices towards the indigenous communities are emerging in the digital age?
· How can digital innovation help address injustices that confront indigenous communities such as the misappropriation and exploitation of indigenous wisdom?
Session 4: Connecting Global and Regional Visions with Local Solutions – Improving the Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Shaping Global Interactions
The connection between global visions of sustainability and local solutions is a crucial aspect of global transformation to address complex challenges such as climate change and social justice. Preserving and transferring indigenous knowledge is important in finding context-specific strategies and actions that meet the unique needs of individual communities.
This session aims to understand how to enhance the potentials of indigenous knowledge in leveraging local knowledge, resources, and expertise to realize global visions of sustainability and human flourishing.
· How can digital innovation help connect global and regional visions with the local solutions offered by indigenous knowledge?
· How can international cooperation support the digital preservation and transfer of indigenous knowledge (and vice-versa)?
Session 5: Indigeneity models of a sustainable future
Indigenous knowledge is essential to shaping the future we envision. Indigenous thinkers provide transformative models in finance, economy, innovation, education, governance, international relations, and social cohesion that have the potential to revolutionize our world.
This session showcases groundbreaking models of indigeneity, presented by dynamic young thinkers, activists, and practitioners who are driving these visionary ideas forward. The session asks the following question:
· How can indigenous knowledge bring us into the future we envision?
Outcome of the workshop:
By bringing together scholars, policymakers, and representatives of indigenous communities, the workshop seeks to strengthen existing networks and advance knowledge on human flourishing and global transformation. Specifically, it aims to produce a workshop report, a journal article, and a policy brief based on insights from impulse talks and discussions. However, participation in these publications is optional, allowing attendees to opt out if they wish. Additionally, leveraging a digital platform, the workshop will showcase indigenous wisdom alongside digital tools and projects that capture stories, myths, terminologies, rituals, and practices—offering alternative perspectives for reimagining social institutions and driving sustainability transformations.
Recent past events
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Religions in Transformation to Sustainability
June 12-13, 2024
THE NEW INSTITUTE, Hamburg
This workshop aims to explore the capacity for religions to overcome their own self-referential dogmatism and sectarian certainties and engage in open discovery with other religious and secular actors on the basis of a common ethical foundation of care, love and respect.
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Beyond Gender Equality in Human Flourishing - Dismantling Violent Dominance Hierarchies
November 6-7, 2023
THE NEW INSTITUTE, Hamburg
This workshop aims to "dig up the roots" to examine the sociology of gender in the coming climate transition and sustainability transformation, the cultural meanings associated with gender identities, gender categories and gender ordering, and understandings of sexual citizenship.
Caspian Dialogue (2008)
Organized by the Processes of International Negotiation (PIN) Program of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Hollings Center for International Dialogue
Newspaper coverage of the event, Der Standard, 16 Sept. 2008