The 5th International Conference on Sustainable Globalization was held in Kerala, India, from January 7-10. After the COVID pandemic break, which allowed for a purely virtual conference alone, organized by Ostfalia University (Dr. Hedda Sander) in 2022, this conference was again a physical meeting event. However, as a lesson learned from the pandemic situation, this 5th annual conference offered the option for hybrid presentations and streaming for the first time.

The conference was organized by Dr. Abey Kuruvilla (University of Wisconsin at Parkside, Program Chair), Dr. Robinet Jacob (Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India, Organizational Chair), and Dr. Hedda Sander (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Center for Scientific Interdisciplinary Risk and Sustainability Management, Review Chair). The conference program offered sessions in four tracks on Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Tourism and Business, and Sustainability, Environment and Risk Management, followed by two workshops on Food and Energy Security in Eurasia and Sustainability (Best Practice Examples). The unique feature of the conference is that participants come not only from academia, but also from the entrepreneurship and government sectors to exchange ideas and develop solutions to the challenges of moving towards a more sustainable world. This approach has already enabled the development of start-ups in the past, such as the student mobility app „Abroad“ or the networking and exchange of best practices between municipalities regarding environmental challenges.

In this context, our team was represented with no less than two presentations by Dr. Hedda Sander. In one of them she presented our Chemification project and showed the attendees first insights into the game and its framework. In particular, the visual material directly from our game met with great interest and discussions have already arisen about joint workshops with international participation from the USA and India for various areas of teaching. The second presentation dealt with the topic „Cost of Climate Change: Financial Consequences for Fisheries, Tourism and Prevention Measures as assessed via Environmental Monitoring“.

We are already looking forward to the 6th International Conference on Sustainable Globalization in January 2024, mark your calendars.