We have the pleasure to inform that in 2022, Professor Anton Van Rompaey will be the Una Europa Chair of Sustainability at the Jagiellonian University.

As a professor of Geography at KU Leuven (Belgium), Anton Van Rompaey teaches cartography, landscape analysis and spatial modelling. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of migration and urbanization and the development of novel techniques to monitor, analyse and model land use systems at rural-urban interfaces. He has a special interest in human-environment systems in transition that are characterized by feedbacks loops and tipping points.

At the Jagiellonian University, he is going to conduct a three-months-long research and teaching project devoted to spatial analysis of causes and consequences of rural abandonment in Europe – one of the most important ongoing demographic processes, which leads to gradual marginalization of Europe’s periphery, at the same time opening possibilities for nature restauration and rewilding. The research project consists of three modules focused on observation, modelling and simulation. Selected activities within work packages will engage MSc students from the Jagiellonian University, KU Leuven, University of Edinburgh and Università di Bologna. Moreover, the partners will co-develop a course module on modelling land use changes in rural areas at the MA/MSc and PhD levels.

The project is organised in the framework of Una Europa, with support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and the Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University, most notably the Priority Research Area Anthropocene.

Congratulations!