Sustainability is increasingly gaining a hearing - in all areas. The topic also has a high priority at the TU Ilmenau. With the Sustainability Year and the founding of a Sustainability Task Group, the university is stepping up its activities on the way to becoming a "Sustainable Community". Jens Wolling, head of the Group for Media Research and Political Communication and a member of the Sustainability Task Group, has been a committed environmentalist for many years and focuses on sustainability in teaching and research. In this interview, Lennert Lifka, a student of Applied Media and Communication Studies, finds out how Prof. Wolling came to Ilmenau, what being sustainable means to him, and why universities in particular should take more of an interest in the topic.
accompanies the TU Ilmenau on its way to becoming a Sustainable Community.
Prof. Wolling, what do you focus on in your research?
In recent years, I have focused more and more on research into communication about sustainability, the environment and energy. However, it is also clear that there are other areas that are just as important and that we are also working on. Examples include migration, education, digitization and health. Communication plays a major role in these topics as well.
One might think that topics of this importance are largely developed and discussed in urban centers. But Ilmenau is comparatively small. So why the city in the middle of the Thuringian Forest?
I was initially a research assistant in Dresden and there was a visiting professor there who obviously appreciated my work. When he was called to Ilmenau, he asked me if I would like to join him as a staff member, and I did. After a successful application and a few years as a staff member, my path led me to Munich, where I was allowed to substitute for a professorship. The position in Ilmenau became vacant and I returned to the small town as a professor.
There were several reasons for this decision. On the one hand, I definitely appreciate the short distances in the city and the nature in the immediate vicinity, and the cost of living is also significantly lower here compared to Munich. On the other hand, the facilities at Ilmenau Technical University are good, especially in comparison to Munich. That may sound strange at first, but in fact: We are very well positioned in terms of both human and material resources. The overall package here simply convinced me.
In your teaching and research, you are heavily involved with sustainability. How do you approach the subject in your private life and what significance does the topic have for you personally?
I have been a member of NABU for around 40 years. Back then, I started cutting pollarded willows together with other nature enthusiasts, and my skills as a trained carpenter came in very handy(Prof. Wolling grins). However, precisely because of my job, I was only a paying member for a long time and could not lend a hand directly. For some years now, however, I have been more active there again. One NABU project I'm involved in is "FairPachten. The main aim is to advise and inform: Which nature conservation measures make sense for arable land and grassland? How can they be agreed in a lease contract? And much more.
Two years in Nicaragua also sensitized me to the issue. There, in the 1980s, I was in charge of water projects to build up the drinking water supply for the local inhabitants. In this project I was able to see how social injustice in the world is connected to ecological destruction. The images of the devastating environmental destruction on former jungle land particularly stuck in my mind.
This also rubbed off on my everyday life today. About 30 years ago I decided not to own a car anymore. A decision, which I do not regret until today. When I built my house here in Ilmenau, it was also important to me to build in the city so as not to seal any unnecessary area outside and to use solar energy and geothermal energy. We surrounded our house in the middle of the city with a small but beautiful ecological garden. My activity with the Green Party, the organization of garbage collection campaigns (see umweltkampagnen.de) or the participation in the "Wattbewerb" complete the whole thing a bit further.
With the Scientific Year "Sustainability", TU Ilmenau not only wants to present research projects related to sustainability to a broad public, but also to focus on initiatives that make the university more sustainable. Why is it important that people at the university and in the region are made aware of sustainability?
Generally speaking, universities are the trainers of leaders. If you start there and communicate the importance of the issue early on, you can change a lot of things. The impact of a university on its surrounding region should also not be underestimated. On the one hand, it's a matter of setting an example, but on the other hand, it's also a matter of orientation. Political discourse and decisions here in the region take into account not least what is important for the university. So if the university is now strongly connected with sustainability, this can have a positive effect on the surrounding area and bring about necessary changes. Moreover, as a technical university, we in particular are drivers of innovation and impetus.
You are a member of the task group that deals with sustainability at TU Ilmenau.
The background to all this is a research project. This is an association of four Thuringian universities. The TU Ilmenau, the University of Erfurt, the UAS Erfurt and the UAS Nordhausen want to network in the course of this and work together on different aspects of sustainability. Our part is sustainability communication in particular.
At the TU Ilmenau, a sustainability task group was founded in which committed employees of the university work together to promote sustainability at the university. The members represent all areas of the university as an institution. This means not only research and teaching, but also procurement and campus life are included. This helps us to be able to work strategically and create networks between the different areas. We have regular networking meetings to gather ideas and agree on how to proceed. One topic that we would like to move forward with the city is sharing. We think that sharing offers can make the campus more livable and at the same time more sustainable. First of all, this concerns the area of mobility. Here, offers in the direction of bicycles, but also cars are conceivable and necessary.
These all sound like very positive developments and prospects. Do you find it difficult to maintain this attitude in view of the current crises in the world?
There is no alternative to optimism, that much can definitely be said. I'm glad that there are enough other people who think the same way. My message is: We need a mixture of patience and impatience. In this context, patience means we need to have staying power. Long because there are things and processes that cannot happen overnight. Impatience, on the other hand, is necessary because we have to push for things to happen faster. We must not lose courage and, above all, we must be ambitious. I think ambition, intrepidity and cooperation are crucial qualities in view of the subject matter in order to master this mammoth task.
About the person
Prof. Dr. Jens Wolling is a trained carpenter and studied journalism and history at the Free University of Berlin. In 1999, he received his doctorate with the topic "Politikverdrossenheit durch Massenmedien. Der Einfluss der Medien auf die Einstellungen der Bürger zur Politik" at the TU Dresden. After working as a research assistant at the TU Ilmenau and a professorship deputation at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Jens Wolling was appointed professor for online communication at the Institute for Communication Science and Media Research at the LMU in 2005. Since 2006, he has been Professor of Media Research and Political Communication at the Institute of Media and Communication Studies at TU Ilmenau. Between 2010 and 2018, he served in phases as Director of the Institute of Media and Communication Science and Dean of Studies of the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, as well as Associate Dean and Dean of the newly founded Department of Economic Sciences and Media. With his group, Prof. Wolling is involved in research projects related to sustainability issues, such as the BMBF-funded exhibition project "Wissenschaftskommunikation Energiewende". His current project "KLIMA network for more sustainability in Thuringia. Education for Sustainable Development" is funded by the BMBF and deals with the conceptualization of a sustainable society. Prof. Wolling's group hosted an online conference on the topic of "Climate (Change) Communication" as early as 2022. The focus was on public communication about climate change. He is also co-editor of a book series on sustainability, energy and environmental communication (www.neu-kommunikation.de). In addition to his work in research, Prof. Wolling is involved in local politics as a member of the district council in the Ilm district and organizes a "Spring Clean" twice a year as well as the "Clean Up Day" during which volunteers from the city and university clean up nature of trash.
Background of the interviews
As part of the seminar "Berufsfeldorientierung Journalismus" students of the TU Ilmenau interviewed members of the university. The interviews deal with topics that TU Ilmenau is strongly concerned with - including sustainability, e-learning or internationality. In conversation with the students, lecturers, researchers and employees also reveal very personal insights and tell what drives them, how they cope with professional and private challenges and what their everyday working life at TU Ilmenau is like.