Prof. Dr Melanie Jaeger-Erben (Head of Department)

Melanie Jaeger-Erben has been Professor of Technical and Environmental Sociology at BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg since 1 October 2021. She was previously head of the Chair of Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research in Electronics at TU Berlin.

www.researchgate.net/profile/Melanie-Jaeger-Erben

Main campus, LG 10, Room 238

T +49 (0) 0355 69 2973
melanie.jaeger-erben(at)b-tu.de

Curriculum vitae
Publications
Research
Seminars

Stations

Studied Psychology and Sociology at the Universities of Göttingen and Uppsala (Sweden).
Postgraduate course in 'Qualitative Social and Educational Research' at the Centre for Educational, Counselling and Social Research in Magdeburg (graduated in 2009).
Doctoral studies in sociology (2010) at the University of Technology Berlin (TUB) (title of thesis: "Between routine, reflection and transformation - the change of everyday consumption through life events and the role of sustainability").
2004 to 2008 research assistant in the Environmental Psychology teaching and research unit at the University of Magdeburg
2008 to 2013 and from 2016 to the beginning of 2019 research assistant at the Centre for Technology and Society at TUB
2013-2016 she worked as an external consultant for the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)
Winter semester 2018/2019 Representation of the W3 professorship "Anthropogeography with a focus on human-environment relations" at the LMU Munich

Functions and other activities

Member of the expert commission for the German government's fourth gender equality report
Co-leader of the ESYS working group "Energy Transition of the Built Environment" in the academy project "Energy Systems of the Future - ESYS"
Member of the Federal Environment Agency's Resources Commission (until 2024)
Member of the Board of Trustees of the Hans Sauer Foundation (since 2022)
Member of the selection committee for scholarships of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (until 2024)
Liaison lecturer at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
Board member of the Institute for Social Innovation e. V. (ISInova)
Partner of the Institute for Social Innovation Consulting UG (ISIconsult)
Associate Editor at Sociology and Sustainability
Associate Editor at GAIA
Member of scientific working groups: Working Group "Circular Economy" and Working Group "Social Change" in the Future Earth Knowledge-Action Network Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production, Member of Working Group 1 "Circular Business Models" of the Circular Economy Initiative Germany (CEID) of acatech - German Academy of Science and Engineering

Publications of the last 10 years (selection)

Beyeler, L. & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2025) Sufficiency as a matter of care: practices to provide for needs. Ecological Economics, 238(108737), 1-15. doi. org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108737

Schwickert, Samantha; Strikker, Paul; Lautermann, Christian; Jaeger-Erben, Melanie; Preis, Astrid; Hirschl, Bernd (2025). Success conditions for a just and inclusive "energy transition from below". Intersectional and feminist perspectives on citizen energy. Published in: IÖW publication series 231/25

Molnár, M., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2025). Supporting consumer engagement in electronics repair: effects of financial incentives and voucher schemes.Journal of Responsible Production and Consumption, 2(1), 191-234.

Jaeger-Erben, M., Gram-Hanssen, K., Hansen, A. R., Frąckowiak, M., Guilbert, A., Pluciński, P., ... & Wertheim-Heck, D. S. (2025) Policies for Times of Disruptions: How Households in Europe Dealt with the Energy Crisis in the Winter 2022/2023. Available at SSRN 5092424.

Jaeger-Erben, Melanie/ Wagner, Andreas/ Bastian, Marco/ Bolln, Stefan/ Dütschke, Elisabeth/ Eiden, Benedikte/ Gierds, Jörn/ Grobler, Frederic/ Großmann, Katrin/ Hirschl, Bernd/ Holm, Andreas/ Menges, Roland/ Messerschmidt, Burkhard/ Reusswig, Fritz/ Schumacher, Jörg/ Streblow, Rita/ Weismann, Benjamin: "Wie gelingt die Energiewende im Gebäudebereich? Fields of action for a socially acceptable transformation" (Impulse), publication series "Energy Systems of the Future" (ESYS), 2025, doi.org/10.48669/esys_2025-3 .

Yalçın, N. G., Paredis, E., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2025). Packaged science? Incumbent strategies of science capture from a power perspective. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 54, 100931.

Jaeger-Erben, M. (2024). No quick answers: Transformation research must "remain restless"!GAIA-Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 33(3), 289-289

Haase, L. M., Mugge, R., Mosgaard, M. A., Bocken, N., Jaeger-Erben, M., Pizzol, M., & Jørgensen, M. S. (2024). Who are the value transformers, value co-operators and value gatekeepers? New routes to value preservation in a sufficiency-based circular economy. Resources, conservation and recycling, 204, 107502.

Yalçın, N. G., Paredis, E., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2024). Contested discourses of a circular plastics economy in Europe: prioritising material, economy, or society?Environmental Politics, 33(2), 219-239.

Rabiu, M. K., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2024). Reducing single-use plastic in everyday social practices: Insights from a living lab experiment. resources, Conservation and Recycling, 200, 107303.

Weber, H. & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2023). Circular Economy - The turn to closed cycles as a constant fiction. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Greene, M., Hobson, K., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2023). Bringing the circular economy home-Insights from socio-technical perspectives on everyday consumption. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 100157.

Jaeger-Erben, M. (2023). Planned obsolescence - an environmental sociological deconstruction. In: Sonnberger, M., Bleicher, A., Groß, M. (eds) Handbook of Environmental Sociology. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-658-37222-4_51-1

Hipp, T., Jaeger-Erben, M. (2023). "Doing Value: How Practices of Assigning Meaning Influence the Usetime of Devices. In: Jonas, M., Nessel, S., Tröger, N. (eds) Repair, Do-It-Yourself and Circular Economy. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-658-40150-4_6

Jaeger-Erben, M., Poppe, E., Wagner, E., Schaefer, A., Druschke, J., Gröger, J., Behrens, F. (2023). Analysis of the software-based influence on a shortened useful life of products. Federal Environment Agency, Texts 13/ 2023.

Yalçın, N. G., Paredis, E., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2023). Contested discourses of a circular plastics economy in Europe: prioritising material, economy, or society? Environmental Politics, 1-21. https://doi. org/10.1080/09644016.2023.2192145

Jaeger-Erben, M., Wieser, H., Marwede, M. & Hofmann, F. (2023). Durable Economies - Organising the Material Foundations of Society. transcript Verlag.

Jaeger-Erben, M. & Rigamonti. N. (2023). Citizen Science. In: Sonnberger, M., Bleicher, A., & Groß, M. (2023). Handbook of environmental sociology. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Jaeger-Erben, M., & Hielscher, S. (2022). Repairing conditions: How repairing and do-it-yourself changes our relationship to the world. transcript Verlag.

Barth, T., Jaeger-Erben, M., Jochum, G. & Lorenz, S. (eds.) (2022): Creating sustainable value? Labour and technology in the socio-ecological transformation (= Arbeitsgesellschaft im Wandel), Weinheim: Juventa Verlag an imprint of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co KG.

Rabiu, M. K., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2022). Appropriation and routinisation of circular consumer practices: A review of current knowledge in the circular economy literature. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 100081.

Beyeler, L. & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2022): How to make more of less: Characteristics of sufficiency in business practices, in: Frontiers in Sustainability 3.

Jaeger-Erben, M., Jensen, C., Hofmann, F., Zwiers, J. (2021). There is no sustainable circular economy without a circular society. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 168, 105476. DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105476.

Jaeger-Erben, M., Frick, V. & Hipp, T. (2021). Why do users (not) repair their devices? A study of the predictors of repair practices. Journal of Cleaner Production, 286, 125382.10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125382

Hielscher, S. & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2020). From quick fixes to repair projects: Insights from a citizen science project. Journal of Cleaner Production, 278, 123875. 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123875

Jaeger-Erben, M. (2020). Bought today - gone tomorrow. From linear to circular consumption. In: Tudor, T., & Dutra, C. J. (Eds.). (2020). The Routledge Handbook of Waste, Resources and the Circular Economy. Routledge. ISBN 9780367364649

Augenstein, K., Bachmann, B., Egermann, M., Hermelingmeier, V., Hilger, A., Jaeger-Erben, M., et al. (2020). From niche to mainstream: The dilemmas of scaling up sustainable alternatives. GAIA, 29 (3), pp. 143-147. 10.14512/gaia.29.3.3

Zwiers, J., Jaeger-Erben, M. & Hofmann, F. (2020). Circular literacy. A knowledge-based approach to the circular economy. Culture and Organisation, 26:2, 121-141. 10.1080/14759551.2019.1709065

Jaeger-Erben, M., Kramm, J., Sonnberger, M., Völker, C., et al. (2018). Building Capacities for Transdisciplinary Research: Challenges and Recommendations for Early-Career Researchers. GAIA (4/2018), 379-386. 10.14512/gaia.27.4.10

John, R., Jaeger-Erben, M. & Rückert-John, J. (2016): Elusive Practices: Considerations on limits and possibilities of environmental policy for sustainable consumption. Journal of Environmental Policy and Governance. 26 (2): 129-140. 10.1002/eet.1706

Jaeger-Erben, M.; Rückert-John, J. (2015). Researching transitions to sustainable consumption: A practice-theory approach to innovation in consumption. In: Putting Sustainability into Practice: Advances and Applications of Social Practice Theories, Edited by Emily Huddart Kennedy, Maurie J. Cohen, and Naomi Krogman. Edward Elgar. pp. 159-184. 10.4337/9781784710606

Jaeger-Erben, M., Rückert-John, J. & M. Schäfer (2015). Sustainable consumption through social innovation: A typology of innovations for sustainable consumption practices. Journal of Cleaner Production, 108, 784-798. 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.042

Current research projects

Click here for an overview of all current research projects of the chair

Main research areas

Social science technology research
Sustainable consumption and production systems
Social innovation and social change
Qualitative research methods, mixed methods and participatory procedures

Summer term 2025

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