Thesis Supervision

Expanding the renewable share in energy supply is a fundamental requirement in most countries to meet climate targets. The challenge remains how to integrate this supply with often accentuated peak hours efficiently to the main energy grid. From the perspective of the growth potential, a lot of businesses develop digital tools to enable the efficient integration of renewables, Latin America appears to be a highly dynamic region for smart grid technologies. The interested student would establish an overview of current initiatives in the highly dynamic region of Latin America.

Collaborating Partner: HSG Competence Center Energy Management (Dr. Christian Opitz)

Format: Desktop; Master or Bachelor

Requirements: An interest in the topic and Spanish language skills an asset

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Cities administrations are increasingly under pressure how to finance and realize important projects. Linked to neoliberal reforms and de-regulations, throughout the world an important role is given to private actors while the public sector remains with often little direct means to translate urban planning visions into reality. Local governments have to be increasingly inventive in organizing the required financial means.This research aims at analyzing recent advancement in financing urban development that often take place in partnership between governments, private sector and international investments.

Collaborating Partner: WISE

Format: Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Requirements: An interest in the topic, an econ. / finance / real estate background an advantage

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Almost a billion people live in slums and many more are inadequately housed. Affordable Housing is one of the great development challenges of our time. Governments around the world increasingly acknowledge the scale of the problem and launch new interventions to remedy the situation. GIMLA advances its own research on the scientific analysis of slum upgrading and housing programs but also collaborates with very important knowledge stakeholders, such as the UHPH (Urban Housing Practitioners Hub) and Cities Alliance.

Specific topics are co-developed with interested students and may range from in-depth analysis of specific projects, the review of the experiences in a country to structural investigations of specific issues in the Latin American but also other world regions. 

Collaborating Partner: WISE, UHPH, Cities Alliance

Format: Onsite / Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Requirements: Portuguese, French, Spanish skills an asset

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Unaffordable housing affects billions of people around the world. Housing is either too costly or inadequate for families. From a global perspective, increasing access to and the performativity of housing microfinance (HMF) is one of the most promising ways to ensure access to decent housing. We are currently involved in a research project on the supply-side, financing and regulation of HMF in Africa that can represent exciting spinoff thesis assignments.

Collaborating Partner: Clurb and Centre for Affordable Housing Finance Africa

Format: Desktop; Master (exceptional Bachelor students may also be considered)

Requirements: An interest in the topic and French or Portuguese language skills an asset

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Collaborating Partner: Linked to ongoing HSG project

Format: Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Collaborating Partner: An international Research Network

Format: Onsite / Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Requirements: Portuguese skills an asset

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Real estate developers are central agents of change and influence urban development throughout the world. Despite the centrality of these stakeholders in steering urbanization processes and their spatial manifestation, the existing body of literature remains thin. The aim of this research project is to advance our understanding on the institutional dimension of the real estate ecosystem and highlight the interlinkages between the development industry and urban planning, policy making, as well as financial investment practices.

Collaborating Partner: WISE

Format: Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Requirements: An interest in the topic.

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Cities Alliance has established a Joint Work Programme (JWP) to respond to the equitable economic growth challenge in cities. The JWP focuses on supporting equitable access to public goods and services (e.g. basic infrastructure, public space, public transportation, energy) by all citizens and formal and informal businesses in urban areas. GIMLA supports the collaboration with three academic networks to gather and synthesize knowledge on the local socio-economic effects of programs implemented in various cities in the LAC region.

Collaborating Partner: Cities Alliance, N-AERUS, REDEUS, NAURI

Format: Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Requirements: An interest in the topic.

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Smart cities are increasingly discussed in Latin America and seen as a new urban paradigm to answer the development challenges in the 21st century. The wilful alignment of governments with the private market in the pursuit of technological innovations brings new opportunities but also risks to the highly urbanized societies in Latin America. This research project seeks to produce knowledge on smart cities and its impact on participation/accountability/bottom-up initiative as well as on sustainability and inclusion. Theses based on literature reviews as well as in-depth case studies are possible. Depending on the particular interest and motivation of the student, other topics in relation to smart cities can be pursued.

Collaborating Partner: WISE

Format: Onsite / Desktop; Master / Bachelor

Requirements: Portuguese or Spanish skills an asset

Status: Ongoing, accepting requests

Business Improvement Districts (BID) are a specific form of multi-sector partnerships, where local governments, the business sector and land owners jointly work towards realizing well-managed, clean, safe, attractive urban environments. Despite a broad application in some countries of the Global North, implementation in Latin America has been punctual and at best experimental. Little is known about the success factor of BID (and similar programs) in the world and the major impediments to its application in LAC. Within the project, IDB supported by GIMLA, aims at reviewing the existing literature, developing a toolbox, analyzing case studies, and implementing pilot programs.

Collaborating Partner: Inter-American Development Bank

Format: Onsite / Desktop, Master / Bachelor

Requirements: Portuguese or Spanish skills an asset

Status: In progress, closed for applications.