The European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC), founded in 1993, is an umbrella organization of 30 environmental and sustainability councils from 16 European countries, each of them chosen by its specific government as an independent advisory council from the fields of academia, science, and society. Campus.leben spoke with Professor Miranda Schreurs about her new job as chairperson of the EEAC.

Benjamin Stora is in demand these days. He fields calls from international journalists several times a day. The topic? The current situation in North Africa. The far-reaching consequences of French colonial rule in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia are part of Stora’s research as he spends this semester as a visiting professor at the Center for French Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.

In Germany, the face of the elderly poor is a woman’s face. Last year, women in the west of the country received an average of 449 euros in statutory pension insurance from their own working lives, while men received nearly twice as much – 865 euros – according to information provided by Deutsche Rentenversicherung (DRV), the agency that administers the statutory pension insurance program in Germany. But these average figures tell us less and less about the actual working lives and asset situations of elderly women, since every period of parental leave taken and every year spent working part-time widens the pension gap, depressing pension levels and driving survivor benefits down – even though time spent raising children is counted in the system.