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Societal change and modernization co-evolve with particular forms, structures and discourses of spatial development – from neighborhoods to entire world regions. While human activity is constantly re-shaping spatial configurations and relations, it is equally shaped by them.

With a view to the aggravating global social-ecological crisis and its symptoms such as climate breakdown, resource conflicts or environmental migration, spatiality thus becomes a crucial variable for our common future: Pathways towards sustainability require encompassing changes in the spatial relations of nature, society and technology.

Therefore, spatial developments always need to be understood in the context of societal transformations and Earth system dynamics. For this purpose, the Chair is concerned in research and education with inter- and transdisciplinary concepts and methods for cross-scale spatial analysis and transformative stewardship, thus contributing to the formation of spatial sustainability sciences.

The chair holder is also the Director of the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Dresden by way of a joint appointment.

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