Economic development: a regional challenge for the heartland

Economic development - Midwest ; Economic development - West ; Economic development - South

Regionalization below State-Level in Germany and the United States

As the executive director or the Research Institute for Public Administration at the German Post-Graduate School of Administrative Sciences and host of the workshop "Regionalization below State-level in Germany and the United States" I would like to thank the President of the National Academy for Public Administration, R. Scott Fosler, for the fine and intensive cooperation which was the precondition for the good atmosphere and the fruitful scientific exchange during the conference. I also want to thank the Regional Planning Association Rhein-Neckar, INFOBEST Kehl/Strasbourg and the Badische Stahlwerke AG - as destinations and hosts of our excursions they contributed to very useful insights. I am furthermore obliged to the Investitions- and Strukturbank Rheinland-Pfalz GmbH on whose invitation we were able to make our American guests familiar with the Pfälzer whine and cooking as well as to Mr. and Mrs. Siedentopf whose amiable reception at Godramstein was another highlight of our social activities. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Ann Mladinov and Natascha Füchtner. Their close trans-atlantic preparatory management, their organizational work and assistance to the participants guaranteed the smooth and successful proceeding of the conference

Energy security through the lens of renewable energy sources and resource efficiency

This chapter provides an overview of the genesis and transformation of the notion of energy security over time, outlines the prevailing shifts in patterns and concepts of energy security in the twenty-first century, and discusses attempts to conceptualise energy security. It also offers a novel conceptualisation of energy security and compares available approaches with the proposed concept. The chapter defines energy security as sustainable use of renewable energy sources (RES), which means the purposeful and ever-increasing utilisation of renewable sources for the production of power, and a corresponding decrease in reliance on non-renewable sources, complemented by resource efficiency programmes. The chapter emphasises the need for effective governance, focusing on ensuring long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability