Professorship (W3) for Ecosystem Services

As an excellence university, the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) is one of the most high-performing research institutions in Germany. Founded in 1828, it is today a globally oriented, regionally anchored leading university that aims to make innovative contributions to solving global challenges. In research and teaching, it combines engineering and natural sciences with the humanities, social sciences, and medicine. This nationally outstanding diversity of subjects enables the university to promote interdisciplinarity and bring science to society. TUD sees itself as a modern employer and aims to offer all employees in teaching, research, technology, and administration attractive working conditions, thereby promoting, developing, and integrating their potential. TUD stands for a university culture characterized by openness to the world, appreciation, joy of innovation, and participation. It understands diversity as a cultural self-evident truth and a quality criterion of an excellence university. Accordingly, we welcome all applicants who wish to commit themselves, through their performance and personality, to our success and with us.

At the Internationales Hochschulinstitut Zittau, a Central Scientific Institution of TUD, a

Professorship (W3) for Ecosystem Services

is to be filled as of October 1, 2027.

Tasks of the Professorship

The professorship represents the field of Ecosystem Services with an environmental economic or ecological-economic orientation in research and teaching with a workload of eight LVS. A central component is teaching in the international Master's program "Ecosystem Services," which is conducted in English. The professorship includes the academic coordination as well as the further development of this degree program. The Master's program combines the natural science, economic, and social science expertise of the IHI Zittau, the Fakultät Umweltwissenschaften of TUD, the Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz, and the Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung Dresden e.V.. Membership in the Fakultät Umweltwissenschaften of TUD is intended.

The subject matter in research and teaching is the fundamentals and methods of recording and assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services and their societal valuation, i.e., their inclusion in private and public decisions. The professorship includes the strategic development of the interdisciplinary field in cooperation with the neighboring areas of biodiversity and environmental research as well as corporate sustainability and biodiversity management. Further tasks include securing competitive third-party funded projects to participate in collaborative research and to promote young scientific talent. The professorship operates in interdisciplinary research and teaching within the tension field of economics, environmental sciences, and biology. Furthermore, the professorship includes active cooperation within TUD, including with the Fakultäten Umwelt- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, the faculty-wide center for sustainability assessment and policy PRISMA at TUD, as well as the TUD Campus Lausitz, the Verbund DRESDEN-concept, the Hi! Lusatia network, the Akademisches Koordinierungszentrum (ACC) of the Euroregion Neiße, and other local and international partners. The professorship actively participates in academic self-administration and university committees.

Requirements for your profile

We are looking for you (m/f/d) as an internationally recognized personality who will represent and further develop the field of Ecosystem Services with an environmental economic or ecological-economic focus in research and teaching. Your scientific qualification is evidenced by relevant publications in high-ranking international specialist journals, international networking, successful third-party funding acquisition, and proven teaching success. In doing so, your work must cover at least two of the following areas related to biodiversity or ecosystem services:

• Economic valuation of the environment
• Social scientific and integrated assessment approaches, e.g., deliberative environmental valuation
• Economic instruments of nature conservation and environmental policy
• Markets regarding the use and sustainable provision of ecosystem services
• Macroeconomic approaches such as ecosystem accounting (inclusion of ecosystem services in the environmental economic accounting)
• Public finance/public economics
• Institutional economic approaches.

In the sense of inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, you should contribute to national and international networks in your field. You possess the ability to use and develop empirical methods, good didactic skills and teaching experience in the field, as well as the willingness and ability to conduct courses in English. Proven experience in inter- and transdisciplinary (collaborative) research is an advantage.

Experience in academic self-administration is advantageous. Your reflective way of working, willingness to cooperate, strategic thinking, sense of responsibility, and motivating leadership of interdisciplinary, diverse teams round off your profile. As an applicant without German language skills, you are also very welcome. However, we expect you to acquire sufficient German language skills to undertake your teaching and self-administration tasks in German after a maximum of three years following appointment.

The requirements for appointment, the official duties, and the civil service status are governed by §§ 59, 69, 71 Sächsisches Hochschulgesetz (SächsHSG) and the Sächsische Hochschuldienstaufgabenverordnung (HSDAVO). The professorship can be filled as a civil servant or an employee.

For further questions, the chairman of the appointment committee, Prof. Dr. Remmer Sassen, Tel. +49-3583 612-4155; E-Mail: remmer.sassen@tu-dresden.de is at your disposal.

TUD is committed to increasing the proportion of female professors and expressly encourages women to apply. TU Dresden is committed to particularly promoting people with disabilities and therefore requests appropriate information when submitting applications. In the case of equal suitability, people with disabilities or those equated to them by law under SGB IX will be given preference in recruitment. The university is a certified family-friendly university and has a Dual Career Service. Should you have questions on these or related topics, the Equality Officer of the IHI Zittau (Ms. Uta Scheunig, +49 3583 612-4115; E-Mail: uta.scheunig@tu-dresden.de) as well as our representative for severely disabled persons (Mr. Roberto Lemmrich, Tel.: +49 351 463-39782) are happy to speak with you.

Information on application

We look forward to receiving your application by 30.10.2026 (the timestamp on the email server or the postmark of the TUD Central Post Office applies).

Please attach the following documents to your cover letter:

• tabular curriculum vitae, presentation of your scientific career, and a letter explaining your motivation for applying
• list of scientific publications, naming the five most important publications, and an overview of research projects including details on third-party funding acquisition
• short research and teaching concept
• list of courses taught, teaching evaluation results from the last three years
• and copies of certificates of all academic degrees.

We request that you apply preferably in electronic form. For this purpose, use the TUD SecureMail portal (https://securemail.tu-dresden.de) and send your documents in one PDF document to: **direktor.ihi@tu-dresden.de**. If applying by post, please also include your application documents in electronic form (CD or USB storage medium) and send them to:

TU Dresden, IHI Zittau, Direktor, Herrn Prof. Dr. Thorsten Claus, Markt 23, 02763 Zittau.

TUD is a founding partner of the research alliance DRESDEN-concept e.V.

Note on data protection: Information on what rights you have, for what purpose your data is processed, and further information on data protection can be found on the following website: https://tu-dresden.de/karriere/datenschutzhinweis.