With the decision of the Governing Board, the two highest management positions in LIAG have been filled. Prof. Dr. Manfred Frechen has been head of the Geochronology Section of the LIAG since 2001 and has headed the institute as deputy director for the past two years. The position as debuty director is now taken over by Prof. Dr. Gerald Gabriel. He has worked for LIAG and its predecessor organization in the research area "Seismic and Potential Fields Methods" since 1998 and has headed this department since 2016. In the event that the ongoing negotiations for a permanent directorate are not successfully concluded, the Governing Board will set up a committee to search for a candidate.

"We at LIAG are very motivated to work together and build on the strengths and geophysical expertise of our researchers to find a strategy for the orientation into an Institute for Environmental Geophysics", explains Prof. Dr. Manfred Frechen. "The decision to further refine our proposed research topics, is also an important step towards a successful scientific future".

Focus on Groundwater Geophysics and Geohazards

The Governing Board instructed the LIAG management to concretize the existing approaches to the content and structural realignment in a holistic framework concept by spring. With the help of workshops, among other things with national and international experts from the geoscientific and geophysical fields, and the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Board based on these, two potential priority topics for research were identified: "Groundwater Geophysics" and "Geohazards". Furthermore, it is to be worked out how influences of climate change or aspects of the upcoming energy transition can be investigated within these two topics. The draft concept provides an important basis for the development of an Institute for Environmental Geophysics.

After the joint federal and state funding within the framework of the liquidation financing will no longer be continued at the end of 2022, the state of Lower Saxony will take over the financing. The state Lower Saxony continues to regard the institute as an important part of the national research landscape and considers both the methodological and scientific competence and the consulting services of the LIAG in connection with current socio-political, economic and environmental policy issues relating to the exploration and use of the subsurface to be indispensable.

About LIAG

The Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics (LIAG), based in Hanover, Germany, is an independent, non-university research institution. Using methods of applied geophysics, future-oriented questions of public relevance are investigated. The main focus of the research work is the exploration of the usable subsurface and the development of measuring and evaluation methods. The institute has over 50 years of experience in geophysical research. LIAG is unique in Germany due to its many years of specialization in the near-surface application of geophysics, the equipment and data infrastructure and the associated possibility of combining a wide range of geophysical methods within one institute to cover a wide range of topics. www.leibniz-liag.de

Further information

• - Experts support the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics in defining its research direction
• - Future of the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics guaranteed