Dr.-Ing. Roland Reitberger was awarded the CEE Department Prize at the graduation ceremony of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the Technical University of Munich for his dissertation on multi-criteria decision support in neighbourhood development. The award-winning work makes an important contribution to sustainable and interdisciplinary urban planning. The focus is on developing a decision support process that reconciles social, ecological and economic criteria in early planning phases. The dissertation addresses the question of how complex systems in neighbourhood development can be made transparent and steered in a fact-based way in early planning phases. The method called “Urban Systems Exploration” combines simulation models and multi-criteria optimization to identify synergies and to make trade-offs, such as between climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation and costs, controllable. The approach was tested on real-world case studies and further developed in collaboration with municipalities. It therefore not only offers theoretical added value, but also has direct relevance for practical urban planning. The CEE Department Prize is awarded annually for outstanding scientific achievements. The evaluation is based on scientific quality, contribution to sustainable development, social relevance and innovation potential. 

The full dissertation is publicly available at: doi.org/10.14459/2024md1747580