Professor Miranda Schreurs Appointed to German Federal Government's Ethics Commission Dealing with Issues of Safety and the Supply of Energy
Director of Environmental Policy Research Centre at Freie Universität to Analyze Reactor Safety and Handling Risks Associated with Nuclear Power
№ 78/2011 from Mar 24, 2011
The director of Freie Universität Berlin’s Environmental Policy Research Centre, Miranda Schreurs, has been appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel to the German government’s newly established Ethics Commission for dealing with safety issues and the energy supply. The panel chaired by former German Federal Environment Minister, Klaus Toepfer, and the president of the German Research Foundation (DFG), Matthias Kleiner, is to assess and classify the handling of risks associated with nuclear power. The panel is made up of several high-ranking church leaders, policy makers, and scientists.
The group of experts was summoned on Tuesday as a response to the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant in Fukushima on March 11. Chancellor Merkel said the panel is to discuss possibilities for a reasonable and practical phase-out of nuclear power in the era of renewable energy. The Ethics Commission is independent of the Nuclear Safety Commission, which is dedicated to technical issues related to the operation of nuclear power plants.
Miranda Schreurs was at the University of Maryland until 2007, when she accepted an appointment at Freie Universität. She has conducted research in Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. A native of the United States, Schreurs has been a visiting researcher and visiting professor at Harvard, Utrecht, Keio, Chuo, and Rikkyo universities. In numerous publications she has comparatively analyzed the environmental and climate protection policy of the European Union, Japan, and the United States. Since 2008 she has also been a member of the German Advisory Council on the Environment, which submits an Environmental Report to the German federal government every four years.
For further information, please contact:
Professor Miranda Schreurs, Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU), Freie Universität Berlin, Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 838-56654, Email: miranda.schreurs@fu-berlin.de