Founded in 1991, the UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig Halle was the first and only research institute in the Hermann von Helm holtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF) to be exclusively dedicated to environmental research. Nowadays environmental research calls for interdisciplinary and applied approaches. At the UFZ, landscape based research and environmental medicine are combined within interdisci plinary research topics with social sciences and ecological economics. Economic and sociological environmental research at the UFZ is geared towards the model of sustainable development. Research is currently fo cused at a local and a regional level. In order to ensure the transferability of regional solutions, work is pursued against the background and in awareness of global ecological interrelations as well as national and international con ditions. In July 1998, the UFZ's Department of Ecological Economics and Envi ronmental Sociology organised an international UFZ Summer School in Leipzig, Germany, dedicated to "Ecological Economics and Regional Sustainability - New Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Research?" Its focus was on the scientific exchange of ideas and experience related to regional sus tainable development. The papers concentrated on innovative approaches towards bridging the gap between the natural and the social sciences in ap plied research projects.

Inhalt
Towards regional sustainability: the need for interdisciplinary and applied research.- 1: Decision making for regional sustainability.- Decisions in the context of sustainable development: ethics and implementation of multi-criteria analysis.- Stakeholder approaches to intertemporal valuation.- Sustainable development of society, economy and environment: consequences for integrated coastal management.- Communicating sustainable development options who evaluates the trade-offs?.- 2: Modelling as support for policy analysis.- Model-based criteria for the effectiveness of conservation strategies an evaluation of incentive programmes in Saxony, Germany.- Joint abatement strategies: a dynamic analysis of acidification and tropospheric ozone.- Incorporating resistance in pesticide management: a dynamic regional approach.- Some evidence of the relative efficiency of multiple-instrument policies for controlling agricultural nonpoint pollution: an application to nitrate pollution.- 3: Evaluating policies for regional sustainability.- The role of the Common Agricultural Policy in maintaining High Nature Value fanning systems in Europe.- Pesticide collection programs: a proposition to prevent future contamination.- Nature conservation in urban landscapes. Implementation and acceptance issues.- Local Agenda 21 as an intergovernmental approach to sustainable development: a promising new strategy?.- Outlook.- Perspectives for economic research into sustainable policies.