The University of Cologne has successfully applied for the Volkswagen Foundation’s ‘Earth System Sciences’ funding programme. From April 2025, the university will receive a total funding of approximately 1.5 million euros for a junior professorship for a period of six years. The designated junior professor is Dr Svenja Riedesel, who works in the field of soil and landscape dynamics. By funding strategically oriented tenure-track junior professorships, the Volkswagen Foundation aims to contribute to the establishment of Earth system science in research and teaching.
Dr Svenja Riedesel applied to the Volkswagen Foundation together with Professor Dr Tony Reimann from the Institute of Geography. The professorship is established at the Department of Geosciences and will combine research activities in physical geography and geology/mineralogy. It will contribute to the development of a holistic view of the Earth system. The professorship’s research and teaching will focus on the so-called ‘Earth’s Critical Zone’, an environment where the lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and anthroposphere interact. This zone is therefore particularly important for a better understanding of human-environment interactions under changing environmental conditions.
The funding emphasizes the role of the University of Cologne’s Department of Geosciences at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences as one of the leading geoscientific institutions in Germany. With its 22 working groups and its incorporation into the university’s Key Profile Area ‘Intelligent Methods for Earth System Sciences’, the department covers a broad and future-oriented range of research fields and thus contributes to the further development of Earth system sciences in Cologne.
Media Contact:
Dr. Svenja Riedesel
Department of Physics
Technical University of Denmark
sveri
dtu.dk
Professor Dr. Tony Reimann
Institute of Geography
University of Cologne
+49 221 470 1724
t.reimannuni-koeln.de
Press and Communications Team:
Jan Voelkel
+49 221 470 2356
j.voelkelverw.uni-koeln.de