Augusto Ospital Receives Heinz König Award 2023 // Outstanding Environmental Economics Research at the Mannheim Conference on Energy and the Environment at ZEW

Outstanding Environmental Economics Research at the Mannheim Conference on Energy and the Environment at ZEW

Sebastian Rausch (Head of the ZEW Research Unit "Environmental and Climate Economics"), Augusto Ospital (winner of the Heinz-König-Award) and Verena Amann (HR Director at MVV Energie AG) at the presentation of the Heinz-König-Award 2023

ZEW Mannheim has been presenting the Heinz König Award for exceptional scientific research to young scholars for 23 years. This year, Augusto Ospital from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was awarded the prize for his work on "Urban policy and spatial exposure to environmental risk". In his research, the doctoral student shows the correlation between plans of urban land use and construction projects in areas that are at a higher risk of forest fires and extreme weather events.

"With his innovative and methodologically sophisticated work, Augusto Ospital sheds light on the relationship between private sector decisions and institutional arrangements in an urban context, and how this interplay can result in climate-related risks that endanger both property and human life. This is important for the development of appropriate measures to adapt to climate change," Professor Sebastian Rausch, head of ZEW's "Environmental and Climate Economics" Unit, explains the decision of the scientific committee to select him as the award winner.