Brandenburg Regional Development (BBRegE)

The ‘Brandenburg Regional Development (BBRegE)’ project is a Jean Monnet Module (JMM) under the Erasmus+ programme and is being implemented at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE).

The project coordinator and director is Prof. Dr Georg Miribung. The project is funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme, under the Jean Monnet strand. 

Jean Monnet Modules are teaching and research projects funded by the European Union, which aim to strengthen knowledge of the European Union, its policies, its law and its values in higher education and society. They are aimed not only at students, but also explicitly at stakeholders outside higher education, such as schools, civil society, public administration and politics. Jean Monnet modules thus promote dialogue about Europe and contribute to strengthening democratic values. 

The project is scheduled to run for 36 months (three years). 

The project focuses on teaching European economic, environmental and sustainability policy, with particular reference to the Brandenburg region. Through lectures, workshops and interdisciplinary formats, students will engage with topics including: 

• European economic and environmental law 

• climate change, biodiversity and European environmental policy 

• European forestry and agricultural policy 

• sustainable management and European values 

The European content is integrated across existing degree programmes and combined with practical, innovative teaching methods. 

The project strengthens the dialogue between academia, society and politics and promotes an understanding of how the European Union works and its fundamental democratic values. The project’s outputs – including teaching materials, public workshops, a project website, a textbook and academic publications – will be made publicly available and embedded in the long term within the HNEE’s teaching and learning programmes. 

In addition to the HNEE, various internal and external stakeholders are involved:

• Internal stakeholders from the HNEE 

  • Prof. Georg Miribung 

  • Prof. Uwe Demele 

  • Prof. Alexander Conrad 

  • Dr Astrid Schilling 

  • Dr Josefa Scalisi 

  • Dr Steffi Schneemilch 

  • Manuela Pelz, Centre for International Affairs 

• European partner universities and research institutions, including those in Italy and Austria 

  • Dr Christian Hoffmann, European Academy of Bolzano 

  • Prof. Mariagrazia Alabrese, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa 

  • Prof. Markus Frischhut, Management Centre Innsbruck 

• Regional partners, including schools, civil society organisations and regional institutions 

  • Euroregion Pommerania e.V. 

  • Oberbarnim Schools, Eberswalde 

• Schwedt/Uckermark branch office and  

• Euroregion Pommerania to strengthen regional and cross-border dialogue 

From the project

The Jean Monnet module BBRegE has been running since September 2025. On this page, we are continuously documenting the outcomes of the project in terms of teaching, workshops and publications.

European law in teaching

Content relating to European law is now an integral part of two courses at HNEE. In the International Forest Ecosystem Management degree programme, it forms part of the ‘Environmental Policy and Law’ sub-module in the third semester; in the Sustainable Economics and Management degree programme, it is part of the ‘Economic and Environmental Law’ course, also in the third semester.

The approach is the same in both cases: European Union law is at the centre, and from there the focus branches out in two directions. Upwards towards world trade law and international environmental law; downwards towards implementation in Germany and Brandenburg. This enables students to see where a regulation originates and what ultimately remains of it when it is applied locally. The extent to which the EU shapes economic and environmental policy developments becomes very clear.

The regular teaching is supplemented by guest lectures from colleagues from other European countries. 

Working on cases with AI – and verifying the results

In the environmental law sub-module of the sixth semester of the Forestry degree programme, students worked on environmental law cases with the support of artificial intelligence. The condition was that the tool used and the prompt had to be disclosed. The results were then presented in the lecture theatre, discussed collectively and, where necessary, corrected from a technical perspective.

In this way, the students developed their own practical examples. The aim was explicitly not to simply accept AI results, but to be able to verify them.

International Project Workshops

In the project workshops, students from various degree programmes work together on European and international issues. Legal, economic and ethical perspectives come together here – which makes sense in theory, but rarely happens in everyday academic life because the subjects usually remain separate. In the first year of the project, Prof. Dr Markus Frischhut from the Management Centre Innsbruck gave a presentation on the topic of AI and data protection. 

Dialogue and knowledge transfer

The project is not aimed solely at students. A second strand extends beyond the university – to schools, civil society and regional organisations.

Citizens’ workshop in Schwedt

Together with the Schwedt/Uckermark branch, we organised a public workshop on the European Union and regional development. The workshop focused on how European institutions work, democratic decision-making processes and the question of what cross-border cooperation means in practical terms for the German-Polish border region.

The workshop will take place again in the summer term of 2027.

Workshops in schools

Together with Dr Astrid Schilling and Dr Steffi Schneemilch, a workshop format for school pupils was developed and delivered at the Barnim Upper Secondary School. It explains European institutions, democratic values and decision-making processes in an age-appropriate way, whilst minimising the amount of institutional theory delivered in a traditional lecture format.

In the coming winter semester, the programme will be offered at a grammar school in Schwedt in collaboration with the Schwedt/Uckermark branch office, and will be further developed in the process. It is also planned to run the programme again in the summer semester of 2027.

Publications and textbook

The topics covered in the module are being explored further in an academic context. The following have been published or are in press:

• an article on the European Cooperative in the Handbook of Cooperatives;
• an article on agricultural law in the Yearbook of Agricultural Law.

Currently in progress are:

• an article on the EU Deforestation Regulation;
• an article on law and transformation research, discussed using the European Green Deal as an example;
• a joint article on sustainability reporting obligations under the relevant EU directive, in collaboration with colleagues from the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin;
• an interdisciplinary textbook on law, economics and ethics, co-authored with Prof. Dr Uwe Demele.

The textbook is aimed primarily at students on non-law degree programmes. It is designed to present European economic, environmental and sustainability issues in such a way that they can be understood without prior legal training – and without the economic and ethical aspects being overlooked.

What’s next

Plans for the second year of the project include, amongst other things:

• Guest lectures by Prof. Mariagrazia Alabrese (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa) and Dr Christian Hoffmann (Eurac Research, Bolzano) as part of the ‘Environmental Policy and Law’ sub-module in the coming winter semester;
• Contributions on European and international forestry policy in the ‘Forestry Policy’ course during the first semester of the Forestry degree programme, including the associated issues of equity;
• Further development of the school workshop and its delivery at a secondary school in Schwedt;
• Continuation of AI-supported teaching and international project workshops;
• Preparation of the compulsory-elective module ‘Environmental Law and Certification’ for the summer semester 2027;
• Continued work on publications and the textbook;
• Greater involvement of European partner universities.

Funding information

The ‘Brandenburg Regional Development (BBRegE)’ project, project number 101240755, is funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme, Jean Monnet Action.

Funded by the European Union. However, the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.