Director Jürgen Renn spoke as an expert at a public hearing of the subcommittee "Cultural Relations and Education Policy" of the Bundestag's committee on Foreign Affairs on December 14, 2020. The subcommittee's meeting focused on the global impact of climate change on cultural heritage, where Renn argued for new forms of scientific cooperation as a means to save cultural and natural world heritage sites.

"The preservation of nature and cultural heritage is more closely intertwined than has been acknowledged thus far," states Renn. Cultural techniques have always contributed to enabling sustainable global economic activity, showing that local knowledge is predestined to solve the global issues of today through close-knit interdisciplinary research and shared knowledge practices.