Past events
- 2026-10-29T13:30:00+01:00
- 2026-10-29T14:30:00+01:00
29
ThursdayZEF Public Lecture: Rabies Beyond Dogs - the Case of Ghana
Rabies remain a public health threat in Ghana, with implications extending beyond human health to livestock production, livelihoods, and economic security. Although dogs are the primary reservoirs, transmission to livestock poses challenges for disease surveillance, diagnosis, and control. This lecture presents epidemiological, clinical, and molecular findings from recent rabies investigations involving goats, pigs, and cattle. These include a goat farm outbreak and suspected cat involvement, molecular evidence of dog-to-bull transmission, and the first documented case of dog-associated pig rabies, resulting in human exposure during carcass processing. These cases highlight the complexity of cross-species transmission, gaps in community awareness, and vulnerabilities in zoonotic disease surveillance. The lecture looks into the role of One Health surveillance, intersectoral collaboration, targeted vaccination, and community engagement in strengthening disease prevention and control.
- 2026-10-15T13:30:00+02:00
- 2026-10-15T14:30:00+02:00
15
ThursdayThe German Peace Report - Insights into Policy Advice
For more than four decades, Germany's four leading peace and conflict research institutes have jointly published the German Peace Report (Friedensgutachten). The report is written specifically for German policymakers. It analyzes current violent conflicts and security policy developments, and it gives concrete, evidence-based recommendations for German and European policy. This presentation looks at the challenges and opportunities of this long-standing format of policy advice. One set of questions concerns the tension between academic independence and political relevance. Another concerns how researchers from several institutions agree on joint positions. A third asks how far the recommendations actually reach and shape political decisions. The contribution also considers what the Peace Report achieves as a bridge between research, politics and the public, and what other forms of research-based policy advice could learn from it.
- 2026-09-15T18:00:00+02:00
- 2026-09-15T21:00:00+02:00
15
TuesdayPanel discussion: 10 Years of the Peace Agreement in Colombia
This expert panel discussion will look into the peace process in Colombia, which started in 2016 and sparked great hope for an end to the decades-long armed conflict. We will take a critical look at the successes, setbacks, and future prospects in light of the change in government, as well as to discuss potential lessons for other peace processes. In addition, we will explore Germany's role in supporting the peace process and in financing violence through transnational organized crime and extractivist development models. Find the full program via the link below. Financial support is provided by the City of Bonn [as part of the Bonn Peace Days 2026]. Registration is required! Please register with colpaznrw@riseup.net This event is co-organized by ZEF's Research Group on Cultural and Political Change (ZEF CPC)
- 2026-09-10T14:00:00+02:00
- 2026-09-10T15:00:00+02:00
10
ThursdayProgress towards healthy, sustainable food systems in Africa
Global science and continental policy have converged on a similar ambition. The EAT–Lancet Commission set out what healthy diets from sustainable food systems would require, while the African Union's CAADP process has brought agriculture, nutrition and food systems into a shared framework of commitments and accountability. Yet ambition on paper and food on plates remain far apart. This lecture looks at the political processes through which change is enacted and at the main breaking points. Some are political: fragmented mandates, limited financing, and a policy–research interface where evidence and decision-making too often move on separate tracks. Others lie within the food system itself, in rapidly changing food environments, and in the exposure of all of this to climate and economic shocks. Drawing on experience working at that interface across national, continental and global levels, the lecture reflects on what has moved, what has not, and where the leverage for change now lies.
- 2026-09-08T15:30:00+02:00
- 2026-09-08T16:30:00+02:00
8
TuesdaySyrian Women in Lebanon and Turkey: Conflict and Identity
In this Ceremonial Colloquium, Dima Al Munajed will discuss her award-winning doctoral thesis. In it, she challenges the homogenizing, victim-centered narratives that dominate post-2011 research on Syrian refugee women. Instead, she focuses on their strength and agency. Using an ethnographic, comparative case study approach, Munajed examined how the differing responses of the Lebanese and Turkish governments to the Syrian refugee crisis shaped the civic engagement of Syrian women during the same period of displacement. She found an overall increase in civic participation after the war. The findings of the thesis on the growth and diversity of Syrian women's feminist activism and awareness since 2011 provide valuable context for understanding current debates over the roles of Syrian women following the recent liberation of Syria from over 50 years of al-Assad rule and Baathist policies. The ZEF Doctoral Thesis Prize is awarded every two years by the Friends of ZEF Association.
- 2026-09-03T13:30:00+02:00
- 2026-09-03T14:30:00+02:00
3
ThursdayZEF Public Lecture: Data for People
As modern research ethics enters its social justice era, researchers are faced with a proliferation of ethical considerations to negotiate. I suggest a simple framework focusing on research participant empowerment, accessibility, safety, and inclusivity (EASI) as a means for navigating between and across epistemologies, disciplines, and methods. I discuss practical implications as well as potential barriers to its implementation. I invite participants to reflect on their own research experiences as part of a broader dialogue on the future of social science research within the Global South.
- 2026-08-27T11:00:00+02:00
- 2026-08-27T12:30:00+02:00
27
ThursdayZEF Public Lecture: Research Evidence to Policy Action
About the speaker: Dr. Gaston Sorgho MD, MPH, PhD served as the World Bank Group's Practice Manager overseeing health, nutrition, and population programs in West Africa. He is a medical doctor with a Master of Public Health from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. Prior The World Bank, he held various positions at the Ministry of Health in Burkina Faso for over 15 years. He joined the World Bank in 1999 and retired in 2024. Throughout his career, he worked extensively in Africa, in a variety of posts ranging from senior public health specialist in the country office of Cote d'Ivoire, to country representative in Mauritania. He taught health sector reform and Results Based Financing for many years at the World Bank Institute in Washington, D.C. and across Africa, Europe, and Asia. Today he continues to work with a range of United Nations organizations in support of governmental health initiatives and policies.
- 2026-07-30T13:00:00+02:00
- 2026-07-30T14:00:00+02:00
30
ThursdayPublic Inaugural Habilitation Lecture
With this public Inaugural Lecture, ZEF senior researcher Dr Tina Beuchelt concludes the process of "Habilitation" at the University of Bonn. "Habilitation" In German-speaking countries allows the degree holder to bear the title PD (for "Privatdozent"). The habilitation thesis is intended to demonstrate that the author has mastered their field in its entirety. For this reason, it is usually written on a topic that is very different from the subject of the doctoral dissertation. In a pre-final step Tina had already been granted the "Ability to teach" (Venia Legendi) in ‘Sustainable Land and Food Systems’ by the Faculty of Agricultural, Nutritional and Engineering Sciences at the University of Bonn on Wednesday, July 8, 2026 after she delivered a Habilitation Colloquium at the Faculty on the topic "Towards equity and justice in the socio-ecological transformation of land and food systems".
- 2026-07-22T11:00:00+02:00
- 2026-07-22T12:00:00+02:00
22
WednesdayZEFCPC Colloquium: Improving local agriculture practices in Niger
Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for most of Niger's population, especially in rural areas, where farming and livestock provide food and income. However, agriculture faces challenges such as drought, desertification, low rainfall, and climate change, which affect productivity. To address these issues, farmers are turning to irrigated crops, i.e. horticulture, which helps bridge the gap in winter crop production and strengthens food security. But, horticulture is subject to high pest and disease pressure and farmers are using a broad range of industrial pesticides, replacing previous traditional control methods. The use of pesticides has thus become an integral part of the modernization of horticulture in Niger. But inappropriate use may cause negative health effects to farm operators, workers, consumers, residents, etc. Here we present research on the (eco-)toxicological impacts of pesticide use in Niger and on their potential risks for human health and the environment.
- 2026-07-08T11:00:00+02:00
- 2026-07-08T12:00:00+02:00
8
WednesdayZEF CPC Colloquium: The cocoa society in Ecuador
This research examines what I call the cocoa society in Molleturo, a rural parish in the Azuay province of southern Ecuador, as a specific socio-spatial formation produced by the encounter between a peasant territory and global cocoa capital. Rather than treating cocoa as simply a crop or a source of income, it reads cocoa production as a process of socio-spatial transformation: one that reshapes who controls the land, who can reproduce their life within it, and what alternatives remain possible. Drawing on Latin American political ecology and critical geography, the research asks how cocoa is transforming the territory, who is shaping land access, loss, and accumulation, and how peasants navigate between agroextractivism and food sovereignty.