Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources

The Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources comprises forest, environmental and earth sciences as well as geography and offers a range of BSc-, MSc-, and PhD degrees in these fields.

Research in the Faculty focusses on sustainable use and protection of natural resources, the adaptation of ecosystems and human-environment systems to global change, sustainable development, and natural hazards and risks.

Currently, larger research groups work on questions related to the development of a bio-based economy, on the nutrition of ecosystems, the conservation of biodiversity, and on geohazards. Employing inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, the faculty contributes to the production of scientific knowledge that connects to civil society and politics.

Forestry and geoscientific teaching and research have a tradition of well over 200 years at the University of Freiburg - spread across various chairs and institutions.

In 1920, a state treaty between Baden and Württemberg stipulated that joint forestry training would be transferred to the University of Freiburg. From this one of the nationally and internationally renowned forest science teaching and research locations developed. The University of Freiburg can therefore celebrate the 100th anniversary of a comprehensive forest science education committed to the goal of sustainability in 2020.

In 1970, both the forest sciences previously integrated into the Natural Science and Mathematics Faculty and the geography originally integrated into the Philosophical Faculty were spun off with the Geoscientific Institutes as independent faculties. In the following years, the Faculty of Forest Sciences and the Faculty of Geosciences were gradually merged into today's unit.

The year 2020 also marks the 50th year of birth of the organizational independence of forest, geological and environmental research at the University of Freiburg!

Today's Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources (UNR) comprises 39 professorships or junior professorships as well as around 20 courses and, with its interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary orientation, is one of the nationally and internationally highly competitive research and teaching institutions in the field of environment and sustainability.