Eva Mayr-Stihl Endowed Chair for Fire Ecology at University of Freiburg to Study Forest Fires in Central Europe
Freiburg, 18/10/2024
The Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation is providing 3.5 millions euros to support the establishment of a new Chair for Fire Ecology at the University of Freiburg. The chair will be the first in the world to focus on studying forest fires in Central Europe and their consequences for biodiversity and ecosystems.
The University of Freiburg is establishing a new Eva Mayr-Stihl Endowed Chair for Fire Ecology. The chair will conduct important basic research to improve our understanding of the consequences of forest fires and vegetation fires in open land for biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and ecosystem services, as well as the interactions between forest fires and other disturbances in forest ecosystems. It will be the first professorship in the world to focus on forest fires in the temperate climate zone, especially Central Europe. The chair was made possible by the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation, which is providing 3.5 million euros in funding over a period of 10 years. Among those to attend the signing ceremony for the cooperation agreement, held in Freiburg on 17 October 2024, were Michael von Winning, director of the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein, rector of the University of Freiburg, Prof. Dr. Heiner Schanz, dean of the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Johann Georg Goldammer, an internationally renowned fire ecologist and director of the Global Fire Monitoring Center at the University of Freiburg.
‘By establishing the world’s first chair for fire ecology, we at the University of Freiburg are making a very important contribution to research on the pressing challenges of climate change. The chair will also further raise the University’s profile as one of the world’s top addresses for forest science, environmental natural sciences, and environmental social sciences. Our big thanks go to the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation for making this possible with the endowed chair’, emphasizes Rector Krieglstein.
Scientific foundations for understanding forest fires
‘Climate change is already causing an increase in forest fires today, but this development will intensify even further in the future. At the same time, the consequences of fires, particularly in the temperate zone, which is where Central Europe is located, are not yet known in sufficient detail. We therefore need to address issues in the field of fire ecology basic research’, explains Schanz. The research of the new chair is to include experimental, observational, and model-based approaches and thus fits in perfectly with the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources and its established collaboration with strong forest science and forestry actors in Freiburg. ‘The chair will also engage in intensive networking with relevant partners and communities at the state level and contribute important basic research, for example at the ForestFireFighting TransferLaboratory currently being established at the University of Applied Forest Sciences Rottenburg’, adds Schanz.
Building on pioneering
achievements in fire ecology
The new endowed chair will build on a decades-old tradition of fire ecology at the University of Freiburg. The forest scientist Goldammer founded the Fire Ecology Research Group here in the late 1970s – since 1990 a collaboration with the Mainz-based Max Planck Institute for Chemistry – and the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) in 1998. The GFMC advises states and international organizations on how to reduce forest fire disasters under the aegis of the United Nations. It is currently being integrated into the Global Fire Management Hub, founded in 2023 by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which is responsible for global forest management and forest conservation. Goldammer was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by the President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his pioneering achievements on 1 October 2024. ‘I’m glad that basic research in fire ecology will now be firmly anchored at the University of Freiburg thanks to the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation’, explains Goldammer.
Support from the Eva
Mayr-Stihl Foundation
The Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation is providing 3.5 million euros in funding for a period of 10 years, starting when the position is filled. Michael von Winning, director of the foundation, emphasizes: ‘A chair for fire ecology is being established for the first time ever in Germany. We continue to support the sustainable adaptation of forests with our fourth endowed chair at the University of Freiburg. At the same time, we’re strengthening the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources as an outstanding address for German and international forest science.’
After the ten-year period of funding, the chair will be continued by the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources as a regular chair. The Chair for Fire Ecology is the fourth Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation chair to be established at the University of Freiburg. Previously, the Chair for Forest Genetics was created in 2021 and the Chair for Multiscale Materials Characterization in 2023. The Chair for Woodland and Forest History was established in 2005 and has since been discontinued.
The Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation was founded in 1986 by Eva Mayr-Stihl and her husband Robert Mayr. One of the foci of the foundation’s work is support for science and research. At the University of Freiburg, the foundation has greatly strengthened forest science and the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources since the 1990s by providing funding for research projects and endowed professorships. Along with the foundation’s support for the Young Academy for Sustainability Research and other innovative formats, this funding has also contributed fundamentally to the development of the University’s current key research area ‘Pathways to Sustainability’ and the Sustainability Innovation Campus. The University of Freiburg conferred the title of Honorary Senator on Eva Mayr-Stihl and Robert Mayr for their special contribution to the University’s positive development.