New Publication: Geographies of the Twin Transition
Dr Lukas Kriesch and Dr Sebastian Losacker, together with Dr Milad Abbasiharofteh, have published a new article in Regional Studies, Regional Science. Entitled "The geography of digital and green (twin) firms in Germany", the study examines the spatial distribution of digital, green, and so-called twin firms across the country.
Drawing on a web-mined dataset, the study shows that green activities are widely spread across Germany, while artificial intelligence (AI) activities are largely concentrated in urban centres. Firms engaged in both green and digital activities are also predominantly located in major hubs. Peripheral regions, by contrast, risk being left behind.The findings provide important insights into the spatial dynamics of the digital and green transitions, and highlight the need for targeted policy measures to address growing regional disparities.
New Publication: Guanxi and innovation in China
Dr Sebastian Losacker, Tim Becker, and Yongmin Shang have published a new research article in Innovation and Development. Entitled “Guanxi and innovation in China: insights from the (bio-based) construction sector”, the study explores the role of guanxi, denoting the network of trust-based relationships, in driving innovation in China’s construction sector.
Drawing on qualitative expert interviews, the authors analyse how guanxi varies along the construction value chain, between bio-based and conventional materials, as well as between Chinese and international stakeholders.
The findings reveal that guanxi is particularly important in smaller firms and academic institutions, where personal relationships drive innovation collaborations. Larger organisations and international partnerships, by contrast, tend to rely more on formal networks and expertise. In bio-based construction, guanxi plays a critical role in accessing resources and knowledge, fostering innovation through established personal networks.
Participation in the NEST Conference 2025
On 29 and 30 May 2025, Charlotte Lobensteiner and Lennart Fischer took part in the 10th annual conference of the Network for Early Career Researchers in Sustainability Transitions (NEST). The conference was held at the University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom, and provided an international platform for interdisciplinary exchange among early career researchers in the field of sustainability transitions. With their presentations, Charlotte Lobensteiner and Lennart Fischer actively contributed to the sessions „Legitimacy and power in sustainability transitions“ and „Complex transition pathways and hard-to-abate sector“.
Presentations
Charlotte Lobensteiner: „Power structures and transition pathways: Investigating the sociotechnical transition towards bio-based building materials in the construction sector“.
Lennart Fischer: „Why transformative knowledge fails to transform: A multi-scalar (de-)legitimation perspective on the construction sector in Chennai, India"
European Bamboo Expo 2025
On 23 May 2025, Tim Becker, Lennart Fischer and Linda Lütkes attended the European Bamboo Expo 2025 - Europe's leading trade fair for the bamboo industry. The event brought together international experts, companies and innovators to highlight the potential of bamboo for sustainable solutions and market growth.
This year's trade fair focussed on the topic: ‘How the European building, construction, and material trade industries can leverage bamboo’s potential for local markets,’. It emphasises the role of bamboo as a sustainable complement to conventional building materials and as a driver of innovation in the European market.
The TRABBI team took the opportunity to gain a comprehensive overview of current developments in the industry through experts presentations, exhibition booths, and personal exchanges. They also conducted short interviews with experts to gain in-depth insights into current trends and challenges.
​
New publication: local conditions and sustainable building material innovations
Dr. Sebastian Losacker, together with Ravi Jayaweera, Le Thi Song, and Dirk Schwede, has published a new research article in Energy Research & Social Science. Entitled „Regional preconditions and sustainability transition pathways: Insights from circular, bio-based and resource-efficient building material innovations in Vietnam”, the paper explores how regional preconditions shape the development and diffusion of sustainable building material innovations in Vietnam.
​
The study focuses on three key dimensions of regional configurations: institutional factors, technical specialisation and material flows, as well as market structures and demand dynamics. Drawing on case studies from Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, the authors demonstrate that regional differences create distinct challenges and opportunities for circular, bio-based, and resource-efficient materials, while other preconditions take effect across technologies, regions or scales. The results highlight the need for differentiated, context-specific transition strategies that address (trans-)regional preconditions on different scales and for different emergent technologies and regions.
New publication in Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
The paper "How to build (in) the future? Legitimacy of socio-technical visions in a bio-based construction sector" by Lennart Fischer and Dr. Sebastian Losacker has been published in the journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions and can be read via the link.
​
Drawing on a discourse analysis across a comprehensive set of expert interviews the paper pinpoint various — sometimes competing — socio-technical visions for a bio-based construction sector in China, India, Germany, and Italy. It further examines legitimacy of socio-technical visions as a necessary condition for their collective adoption by stakeholders in the sector. The paper thereby enables to conceptualize the development and validation of visions, providing a framework for transition studies to track one part of the collective adoption of visions. This, in turn, adds to the understanding of the formation of ideations that potentially influence transition processes.
17th Rauischholzhausen Symposium on Economic Geography
Location: Rauischholzhausen, Germany
April 24–26, 2025
The junior research group participated in the 17th Symposium on Economic Geography at Schloss Rauischholzhausen, gaining insights into current research developments in economic geography through numerous presentations.
In his talk "Tracking the public perception of heat pumps: A sentiment analysis of German news articles," Dr. Sebastian Losacker presented recent findings from the working paper "A geolocated dataset of German news articles" co-authored with Dr. Lukas Kriesch.
Research Reel
Location: Gießen, Germany
April 07, 2025
The Office for Sustainability at Justus Liebig University Giessen presents the work of the TRABBI research group in a new research reel. In the video, project leader Dr. Sebastian Losacker and his team explain the main objectives of the project and emphasize the importance of sustainability as a guiding principle of their research.
The focus is on the question of how social science research can help to better understand and actively shape the transition to a bioeconomy. The work of the research group shows how innovative in the social sciences can make a significant contribution to a sustainable future.
The reel is now available on the Office for Sustainability's social media channels.
​
Copyright: Büro für Nachhaltigkeit (JLU)
Linda Lütkes is joining the TRABBI team as a research associate
Location: Gießen, Germany
01. April
On April 1, 2025, Linda Lütkes joined the TRABBI team as a research associate. As part of the research project, she will focus on the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy in India. This work is also part of her PhD project in this field.
Before joining TRABBI, Linda worked as a Scientific Writer at the office of the Bioeconomy Council of North Rhine-Westphalia, where she contributed to the development of a regional bioeconomy strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Geography from Leibniz University Hannover and a Master's degree in Human Geography from the University of Münster.
We are happy to have her on board and look forward to working with her!
Copyright: CIRCLE
CIRCLE Research Talk
Location: Online
26. March
Heat pumps play a important role in the energy transition, but their widespread adoption is hindered by, among other factors, low public acceptance. Dr. Lukas Kriesch and Dr. Sebastian Losacker analyzed over 33,000 German newspaper articles from 2018 to 2023 using Natural Language Processing to better understand how heat pump technologies are perceived in the public.
​
As part of the Research Talk at CIRCLE – Center for Innovation Research – Dr. Sebastian Losacker presented initial findings from the joint working paper "A geolocated dataset of German news articles." In his talk, he demonstrated how newspaper articles can provide real-time insights into public debates and societal trends, and how large language models are opening new avenues in social science research.
Lecture at NEOMA Business School
Location: Reims, France
11. March
Dr. Sebastian Losacker visited NEOMA Business School in Reims, France, as part of his collaboration with Nicolas Befort (Bioeconomy Chair). During the visit, there was an intensive exchange on their joint research in the field of bioeconomy. In addition, Sebastian Losacker gave a presentation entitled "Tracking the public perception of heat pumps - A sentiment analysis of German news articles" about his ongoing research with Dr. Lukas Kriesch.
PhD School in Sustainability Transitions Research
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
03. - 07. February
Charlotte Lobensteiner participated in the PhD School "Systems, Theories, Policies, and Practices: An Introductory PhD Course in Sustainability Transitions Research", organized by Chalmers University of Technology with support from the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN). The PhD School took place in Gothenburg from February 3 to 7, 2024, and was the first of its kind. Its aim was to introduce early career researchers to the field of sustainability transitions research.
During the PhD School, renowned scholars presented key theories and concepts of sustainability transitions research. A special focus was placed on a Paper Development Workshop, where participants discussed their current research in small groups and received detailed feedback. In addition to the thematic sessions, the event was complemented by various networking activities that promoted interaction among the participants.
Dr. Sebastian Losacker presents research at the Univeristy of Stavanger
Location: Stavanger, Norway
05. December
On December 5, Dr. Sebastian Losacker followed the invitation of Huiwen Gong and Tom Broekel to the University of Stavanger in Norway. Under the title "A geolocated dataset of German news articles" he presented current research on the creation of a news dataset for Germany, which will serve as a basis for future publications. The dataset will be used in the TRABBI research project on socio-technical regimes in the construction sector.
10 years of ‘Bioeconomy as Societal Change’
Location: Bonn, Germany
26. November
The junior research group participated in an event organised by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to mark the tenth anniversary of the funding programme "Bioeconomy as Societal Change". Dr Sebastian Losacker presented an overview of the current progress and first publications of the TRABBI project, which is funded by this programme. In addition, the group showcased their research in four poster presentations.
The event aimed to celebrate the achievements of the programme and discuss its future direction. Launched to support the transition to a bio-based economy, the programme has funded nearly 50 projects from science, industry and society with more than €60 million and focuses on socio-economic and systemic approaches. Flagship projects were highlighted, and the event fostered interdisciplinary exchange on the role of social science research in advancing the bioeconomy.
Lennart Fischer during his presentation on legitimacy in the construction sector.
39th Meeting of the Industrial Geography Working Group
Location: Wiesbaden-Naurod, Germany
14.-15. November
At the 39th annual meeting of the Industrial Geography Working Group (AK Industriegeographie) in Wiesbaden-Naurod, the junior research group presented recent research results. Presentations covered the forest-based bio-economy in Germany, analysed using the Q-method, market formation in the bamboo construction industry in China, and institutional (mis)alignments and (de)legitimation processes in the construction sector.
The event provided an open forum for the exchange of ideas on current research approaches as well as ongoing and completed projects. Special emphasis was placed on giving young researchers, especially PhD students, the opportunity to present their work and receive valuable feedback from more experienced colleagues.
​​Presentations:
Lennart Fischer: "Cross-country comparison of institutional (mis-)alignment in socio-technical configurations & (De-)legitimation processes in the construction sector"
Charlotte Lobensteiner: "Exploring discourses in the German forest-based bioeconomy: A Q-methodological approach"
Tim Becker: "The geography of green market formation: Insights from the bamboo construction industry in China"
Panel discussion at the event "Future Perspectives in the Bioeconomy"
Location: Berlin, Germany
07. November
On November 7, Dr. Sebastian Losacker followed the invitation of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to take part in a panel discussion on "Careers in Science" at the event "Future Perspectives in the Bioeconomy". The event aimed to inspire young people by introducing the bioeconomy as an exciting field for research and future careers. Over 100 young participants gathered at the Ministry in Berlin to explore the diverse training and career opportunities that the bioeconomy offers.
Copyright: Zukunftsperspektive Bioökonomie, bioökonomie.de
Research stay in India
Location: Mumbai & Chennai, India
08. October - 09. November
Lennart Fischer completed a nearly five-week research stay in India. He spent the first week in Mumbai, where he attended the "World of Concrete" trade fair from October 16 to 18 and conducted interviews with experts from the concrete industry. He then traveled to Chennai, where he met with Dr. Sebastian Losacker. Together they spent a week interviewing experts in the field, including in the ecological model city of Auroville. There, various sustainable building materials could be observed in practice, such as reinforced bamboo (photo right) and the use of clay and coconut wood (photo left).
Over the next two weeks, Lennart Fischer continued his work in Chennai on his own, conducting additional interviews with experts in sustainable construction. Particularly insightful were observations of the production of 3D printed buildings (photo bottom center) and the realization of a building with bricks made from industrial waste (photo top center).
Research stay in China
Location: Shanghai, China
13. October - 01. November
Tim Becker and Dr. Sebastian Losacker spent about three and one week respectively at the East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai, China. During this time they worked closely with TRABBI guest researcher Prof. Dr. Yongmin Shang from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Together, they attended CADE BAU, a leading trade fair in the Asia-Pacific region, from October 16 to 18, and conducted interviews with exhibitors. During his one-week stay, Dr. Sebastian Losacker also gave lectures at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and at ECNU.
Tim Becker continued his work for the next two weeks, conducting additional interviews with bamboo industry experts in Shanghai and Zhejiang Province. He visited a bamboo fair in Anji and the world's tallest bamboo house in Ninghai (photo bottom left). In addition, he visited several factories that process bamboo into building materials (photos above) and toured a completed interior project in Shanghai (photo bottom right).
63rd ERSA Congress
Location: Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal
26-30 August 2024
Dr. Sebastian Losacker attended the 63rd Congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) in the Azores, Portugal, from August 26 to 30. In the session 'The Spatial, Regional and Urban Dimensions of Circular Economy' he presented recent research under the title 'Using Sequence Analysis to Uncover the Spatio-Temporal Emergence of Bioeconomy Innovations'.
Copyright: European Regional Science Association
Dr. Herbert Stolzenberg Award for Sebastian Losacker
Location: Gießen, Germany
19. June 2024
Dr. Sebastian Losacker was awarded the Dr. Herbert Stolzenberg Award for Research in Social Sciences, Economics and Law at the summer party of the Giessen Graduate Center for Social Sciences, Economics and Law (GGS) at Justus Liebig University Giessen. Among other recognitions, he received the award for his research with the TRABBI junior research group.
