The accelerating climate crisis is not only reshaping ecological systems; in the Middle East, it is intensifying already fragile political, economic, and social orders. Rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, water scarcity, and the degradation of arable land intersect with protracted conflicts, authoritarian governance, and deep inequalities. In this context, climate change does not simply threaten the material conditions for peace, it destabilizes the very frameworks through which peace is understood and studied. What does it mean to research peace in a region where environmental stress multiplies existing insecurities and contributes to displacement, livelihood loss, and social fragmentation? How should scholars engage with the fact that communities across the Middle East are unevenly exposed to climate impacts, often along lines shaped by colonial legacies, extractive economies, and global energy dependencies? As heat extremes intensify and water systems come under increasing strain, the Middle East becomes a critical site for rethinking the relationship between climate change and (sustainable) peace. In a region already marked by overlapping crises, the question is no longer only how to build peace, but how to conceptualize it under conditions of accelerating environmental disruption. Christiane Fröhlich is a lead research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg. Currently, she is also Acting Professor of Political Science, esp. Transnational Politics, at Helmut-Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg. She is particularly interested in the intersection between forced migration, sustainable adaptation to global environmental change, and socio-political upheaval, and in the interactions between mobility control and state making. At GIGA, she leads the research programme “Peace and Security”. Her regional focus is mainly on the Middle East (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Turkey), where she has conducted extensive field research. She is also engaged in cross-regional comparative projects, including the DAAD-funded Climate Centre “Sustainable Adaptation to Global Change in the Middle East” (SAGE-Centre) as well as, previously, the EU-funded consortium “Migration Governance and Asylum Crises (MAGYC)“. Fröhlich holds a PhD from the Center for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, and is speaker of the German Network for Forced Migration Studies. Nada Majdalani is a Palestinian environmental leader and the Director of EcoPeace Middle East’s Palestine Office. She holds a Master of Science in Environmental Assessment and Management from Oxford Brookes University in the UK and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg under the DAAD Research Centers Programme. Specializing in environmental management, Ms. Majdalani has held several leadership roles within international organizations, focusing on infrastructure development, water and sanitation, solid waste management, sustainable production, and technical assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Her work also extends to institutional capacity building and policy advisory support. A staunch advocate for cross-border environmental cooperation, she has been instrumental in initiatives such as the Green Blue Deal for the Middle East. Ms. Majdalani has presented her work at numerous prestigious international platforms, including the UN Security Council, NATO, World Water Week, the Berlin Climate Security Conference, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and the Brookings Institution.

Disposable sensors are low-cost and easy-to-handle sensing devices for short-term or single-shot measurements. Over the last decade, they have become increasingly important for different applications, including from environmental, forensic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food monitoring to diagnostics, especially the point-of-care testing and wearables. In this talk, first a short introduction to disposable sensors will be given. Afterwards, a broad spectrum of different biosensing approaches for next-generation on-site testing will be presented: (i) Multiplexed on-site therapeutic drug monitoring of antibiotics from invasive and non-invasive samples toward personalized antibiotherapy, (ii) CRISPR-powered electrochemical biosensors for nucleic-acid-amplification-free, simultaneous and on-site detection of multiple RNAs and other biomolecules for COVID-19 management, (iii) wearable microfluidic immunosensing devices for lab-on-a-bird applications and beyond, (iv) low-cost electrochemical paper-based wearable sensors that can be integrated to any type of facemask for wearable and continuous monitoring of breath biochemistry and/or testing of the infectious diseases such as coronaviruses from exhaled breath, and (v) light-controlled dynamic bioassays using optogenetic switches (OptoAssays) for wash- and pump-free point-of-care diagnostics.

The lecture highlights the multifaceted challenges supply chains face today. It juxtaposes the promise of value creation and prosperity with the acute reality of worker exploitation and environmental harm. It explores the interconnected relationships of supply chains with political problems, social crises, and the depreciation of natural resources. The lecture concludes by sketching some ways out of the crisis. Since 2025 Prof. Stefan Gold has been Chair of Sustainability Management at TUMCS. He was previously Professor of Corporate Sustainability at the University of Kassel (2017-2025) and Assistant Professor at the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) at the University of Nottingham (UK) (2014-2016). After completing his PhD at the University of Kassel in 2011, he was a Postdoc at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). He studied International Business and Cultural Studies at the University of Passau (1997-2003). His research in the field of sustainability management is interdisciplinary and focuses on the social dimension of sustainability. In particular, it addresses the question of how sustainability transformation should be shaped and implemented in economy and society. His research focuses on modern slavery and decent work, circular economy, sustainable supply chain management, and sustainability in humanitarian aid.

Diesem Thema widmet sich Prof. Axel Göttlein, Professur für Waldernährung und Wasserhaushalt an der Technischen Universität München (TUM), in einem Vortrag aus der Reihe TUM@Freising am Donnerstag, 16. Juli 2026, um 19 Uhr im Lindenkeller Freising.

Früher hieß es Krankenwagen - heute nennt man die Fahrzeuge der Rettungsdienste "RTW". Aber eigentlich sind sie technische Wunderwerke auf Rädern, denn jeder RTW fährt eine Vielzahl hochkomplexer medizinelektronischer Geräte mit sich herum. Im Notfall soll schließlich jedes nötige System schnell verfügbar sein. Der Referent gibt einen Überblick über die umfangreiche Medizintechnik, die inzwischen im Rettungsdienst genutzt wird.