Funding

Foundation Professorship

Eva Mayr‑Stihl Foundation Professorship for Fire Ecology

Global climate change threatens the functioning of ecosystems worldwide. Forest ecosystems are particularly important for carbon sequestration. However, recurring stresses such as heat waves, floods and droughts are increasingly endangering even Central‑European forests, with potentially cascade‑like effects on their capacity as carbon sinks, their resilience to drought, and their sustainability. Knowledge about the impacts on the multitude of processes that govern the interactions among soil, plants and the atmosphere in these complex systems is largely insufficient, and the uncertainty regarding future changes is extremely high. 
 

Digital Twins of Real Forests

XR Future Forests Lab

The XR Future Forests Lab develops virtual (VR), augmented (AR) and mixed‑reality (MR) applications, initially especially for forest and environmental sciences, including the exploration of advanced data acquisition and analysis as well as the creation of digital twins of real forests. These digital twins enable detailed modelling and visualisation of forest growth, management processes and environmental changes at various research sites. The lab combines the expertise of the Chair of Forest Process Engineering, the Chair of Forest Growth and Dendro‑Ecology, and the Chair of Sensor‑Based Geoinformatics to enhance research possibilities and generate synergy effects. 

Science Communication with AI

Bridging the Communication Gap

Using artificial intelligence to bring the University of Freiburg’s forest, environmental and sustainability science databases back to life, to prepare new and old scientific results in an understandable way, and to develop a model for AI‑‑supported science communication: these are the goals of the project “Bridging the Communication Gap”, which has been located at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources of the University of Freiburg since 2023 and is funded by the Eva Mayr‑Stihl Foundation. 
 
In collaboration with the Science Media Center Lab, various AI applications for internal and external target groups are being developed. Prototypes of the AI applications are presented on this website. 

Foundation Professorship

Eva Mayr‑Stihl Foundation Professorship for Forest Genetics

The foundation professorship investigates tree populations on genetic and epigenetic levels with regard to their adaptation and adaptive capacity to climate change. The aim is to strengthen, in particular, the scientific foundations for sustainable forestry. To this end, Katrin Heer and her team analyse a range of tree data: genomic data as well as data characterising tree phenotypes and their environments. They also study seed dispersal and diversity of tropical tree species using genetic methods. A further focus of the professorship is teaching in the faculty’s forest‑ and environmental‑science degree programmes. 

Early‑Career Research Group

“Modeling Social‑Ecological Systems”

The Early‑Career Research Group on Socio‑Ecological Modelling serves as a bridging unit between the strong socio‑environmental and natural‑environmental professorships and is of central importance for the faculty’s development. The research group focuses on forest‑environment‑human systems, specifically on the regional scale relevant for management decisions. 
 

Fellowship

Eva Mayr‑Stihl Fellowship Programme for Sustainability Research

The Eva Mayr‑Stihl Fellowship Programme offers the faculty’s chairs the possibility to invite international scholars for stays of up to nine months in Freiburg, to jointly advance publications and projects, and to substantially intensify the faculty’s international networking.