This inter- and transdisciplinary research unit aims at understanding contemporary transformations by investigating long-term changes with a focus on their spatial and social-ecological dimensions. Contemporary ecological transformations (e.g., climate change and biodiversity loss), geopolitical and geoeconomic transformations (e.g., rise of the Global South and militarization) and socio-political transformations (e.g., crises of liberal democracy, inequality and social cohesion) manifest themselves in context-sensitive forms of policies, multi-level governance, regulations, institutions, and discourses. From multiple perspectives, but mainly from international and global political economy and political ecology, the research unit investigates contemporary transformations with a particular focus on uneven development, especially in places and territories in the Global South and the European periphery, as well as their entanglements with places and territories in the Global North. The research objects of this research unit are power- and gender-sensitive analyses of multi-scalar structures and diverse forms of collective agency that reproduce and/or transform uneven dynamics of biophysical systems, social-ecological provisioning, international relations, trade, and finance. The unit has a strong interest in economic planning, due to the importance of context-sensitive forms of “transformation by design” that have to link top-down and bottom-up approaches.