Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) is one of Germany’s leading research-focused HEIs, a winner in the Federal Excellence Competition with its concept of an international network university as a centrepiece. Within FUB, the Dahlem Research School was established as one of the 3 integral components of the institutional strategy of Freie Universität as an “International Network University” awarded by the German Excellence Initiative. In collaboration with the Center for Cluster Development, Dahlem Research School furthers the development of innovative research especially addressing young researchers. The School formulates and implements consistent quality standards for structured doctoral education on a university-wide basis. It promotes the development of innovative doctoral programs. The groups of profs. Tockner and Rillig carry out research on freshwater, plant and soil  ecology and biology and are supported by multiple grants and currently hosts several postdocs and more than 10 PhD students.

FUB is a full consortium partner providing (i) members of the Programme Supervisory Board, (ii) organisation of the one week induction course and one week annual workshop every third year and contributing to these events in all other years, (iii) providing a series of specialist training modules, particularly in the areas of soil and plant ecology, freshwater biodiversity and evolution, urban ecology and ecosystem services, restoration ecology, (iv) providing liaison with the associate partner IGB, (v) supervising and co-supervising doctoral students and (vi)  providing experimental and instrumented field site facilities in the River Spree.

Contact persons

Professor Klement Tockner: Director of the IGB and a full Professor at Freie Universität Berlin. He is an internationally recognized expert in limnology and freshwater biodiversity and  has longstanding experience in managing larger projects. He has co-organized two major international conferences, namely the First International Conference on Riverine Landscapes,  2002, and the International Water Management Forum (IWMF), 2007, in Switzerland. He is coordinator of the EU-FP7 project BIOFRESH, a participant of the EU-FP 7 project MIRAGE,  and was work package leader of the EU-FP5-project tempQsim.

 E-mail: tockner [at] igb-berlin.de

Professor Matthias C. Rillig: over 12 years experience as an independent research scientist, teacher and administrator in US and German universities, specializing in plant-soil- microbe interactions. Rillig has >100 peer reviewed papers in the field of plant-soil microbe interactions/ soil ecology, almost all of which are relevant to this grant proposal; http://sites.google.com/site/mycorrhizas/publications lists them all). He has managed grants in both the USA and Germany, and currently supervises 11 Ph.D. students, and mentors 5 postdoctoral associates.

 E-mail: rillig [at] zedat.fu-berlin.de

Scientists involved:

Franz Holker, Research Group Leader

Sonja Jähnig, Research Group Leader

Jorg Lewandowski, Research Group Leader

Michael Monaghan, Research Group Leader

Katrin Premke, Research Group Leader

Martin Pusch, Research Group Leader

Alexander Sukhodolov, Research Group Leader

Christiane Zarfl, IGB Director's Scientific Consultant

Ina Severin, Science Officer