Objectives and strategy

The Heidelberg Center for the Environment (HCE) supports the interconnection between existing competences at Heidelberg University in the area of environmental sciences. Going beyond the traditional boundaries of a specific subject or discipline, the HCE aims at providing academic solutions to existential challenges and ecological effects of natural, technological and societal changes on humans. The complexity and cultural dependence of modern environmental problems goes beyond the analytical framework of any one single method or discipline. For this reason, the HCE employs a model of close interdisciplinary and integrative cooperation.

HCE’s focus is to integrate environmental sciences into research, teaching and scientific communication. This entails initiating, realising and supporting interdisciplinary research and communication; organising interdisciplinary courses in environmental sciences, for example, in the degree programme of geoarchaeology; and systematically enhancing issues of environmental science in discipline-specific degree programmes.