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A new research group coordinated by the University of Bremen will examine how law can help Germany and Europe move towards climate neutrality. The German Research Foundation, or DFG, announced the funding on 18 September 2026, placing the project among nine newly established research groups supported in its latest funding round.
The Bremen-led project, titled “Transformative Climate Law: Space – Time – Society”, will receive €4 million over an initial four-year period. Researchers from several German universities will work together across law, political science and economics to study how climate targets become practical rules, policies and decisions.
From climate targets to workable rules
The project starts from a straightforward but far-reaching question: how can legal systems turn broad climate ambitions into changes that are workable in everyday economic and social life? The researchers argue that law does not simply regulate transformation from the outside. As climate policy develops, it also changes the assumptions, institutions and methods of law itself.
That perspective gives the project a broader scope than a conventional review of environmental legislation. The team will study how international and European climate goals are implemented by local, regional and national authorities. Germany’s federal structure will be one focus, because responsibilities for energy, infrastructure, planning and environmental protection are distributed among different levels of government.
Three dimensions of transformation
The research programme is organised around the three dimensions in its name. The “space” strand will investigate how climate objectives move between global agreements, European institutions, Germany’s federal government, the Länder and local authorities. It will also consider the practical difficulties that arise when different levels of administration must coordinate long-term change.
The “time” strand will look at how climate and resource law deals with delayed consequences. Decisions made today can distribute environmental and economic costs across future generations, regions and populations. The researchers will examine whether existing legal frameworks adequately account for those effects and how Germany’s Climate Protection Act connects long-term goals with concrete measures.
The “society” strand will address the social and technological dimensions of the transition. It includes the legal conditions for emerging carbon-removal technologies, which are still at an early stage, as well as the idea of a “just transition”. The researchers will ask how climate law can support innovation while also responding to unequal impacts and social tensions.
A nationwide academic partnership
The University of Bremen is coordinating the group together with the University of Greifswald. Further participating institutions include the universities of Bochum, Bonn and Freiburg, TU Darmstadt and Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. The partnership is designed to bring different forms of expertise into one research framework rather than treating climate law as a narrowly legal subject.
Claudio Franzius, professor of public law at the University of Bremen, and Sabine Schlacke of the University of Greifswald are the group’s spokespersons. In the university’s announcement, the project is presented as an effort to identify pathways towards climate neutrality while examining how the transformation itself reshapes legal thinking.
Why the research matters
The project does not announce a new regulation or immediate policy measure. Its contribution will be analytical: to clarify which legal instruments can support climate action, where implementation becomes difficult and how public institutions can make long-term change more coherent.
That makes the research relevant beyond specialist legal scholarship. Climate-neutral infrastructure, energy systems and industrial processes require decisions taken over decades, often across administrative boundaries. A clearer understanding of how laws operate across time, territory and society could help policymakers design rules that are more durable, transparent and socially workable.
The DFG says its research groups are intended to give scientists room to pursue current questions and establish innovative directions. In Bremen, that opportunity will be used to connect legal theory with the practical governance challenges of climate neutrality.
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