DepartmentAdministration and Management

New Bulgarian University was established on 18 September 1991 with a resolution by Bulgarian Parliament. The National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency, which reviews Bulgaria’s higher education teaching, granted NBU maximum accreditation in three consecutive accreditations in 2001, 2006, 2012 and 2019. Since 2004, NBU is an accredited partner of the Open University UK.

The research activity at the New Bulgarian University is organized by the teaching communities of the departments and centers. Among the main priorities of NBU's research policy are the transformation of the university into an international research center and its integration into many international university networks, the development of project activities, the development of interdisciplinary research and the integration of research and teaching.

PENSOFT PUBLISHERS

The history of BFU can be dated back to 1902. Originally known as the Forestry Section of the Agriculture Department of the Imperial University of Peking (Jingshi Daxuetang, predecessor of Peking University). After decades of development, BFU has developed itself from a specialized college in forestry to its current status as a multidisciplinary university with leading positions among its counterparts in such disciplines as forestry, soil and water conservation, desertification control and prevention, landscape architecture.

With forestry in the leading position among its national counterparts, competitive advantages have taken shape that highlight the university’s specialties in forest resources conservation, landscape architecture and human habitation environment, bio-materials and energies, ecology and environment, forest biology, as well as in humanities and social sciences.

Faculty of Geographical Science (FGS) in Beijing Normal University has a history of nearly 110 years. It dedicated to being at the forefront of teaching and learning and fostering cutting edge research and discovery as well as contributing to societal services in Geography. FGS enjoys a good reputation at home and abroad, and was ranked No.1 in the third-round national disciplinary assessment, and A+ in the fourth-round national disciplinary assessment.

FGS comprises 6 secondary institutions, including School of Geography, School of Natural Resources, Institute of Remote Sensing Science and Engineering, Institute of Land Surface Systems and Sustainable Development, Centre for Geo-Data and Analysis, as well as Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management. More than 200 faculty members and staff work in FGS at present, 95% of whom are qualified at doctoral levels. Many are also affiliated in the State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology.

CHINA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY

NORTHWEST A&F UNIVERSITY

Northwest University (NWU) is a key national comprehensive university directly under Shaanxi Province. As one of the leading universities in China, NWU is supported by Ministry of Education's “Project 211”. The University can trace its origins back to Shaanxi Imperial College and Peking Imperial College founded in 1902.

NWU has 23 schools and departments, plus a graduate school. In addition to 86 undergraduate programs, NWU has been authorized to confer master' s degrees in 36 firsttier disciplines and 14 professional programs, as well as doctoral degrees in 24 first-tier disciplines. NWU houses 1 national key laboratory, 1 national research center for engineering & technology, 3 national base for international scientific & technological cooperation, 2 bases of Overseas Expertise Introduction Project for Discipline Innovation (111 Project), 1 jointly established training base of national key laboratory by Ministry of Education and Shaanxi Province, 7 national experimental teaching demonstration centers.

The Università degli Studi di Torino (UNITO) is one of the largest Italian Universities, with about 80.000 students, 3.900 employees (academic, administrative and technical staff), 1.800 post-graduate and post-doctoral research fellows. Research and training are performed in 27 Departments, encompassing all scientific disciplines.

According to ARWU international ranking, in 2018 UNITO ranks among the top 300 universities out of 1.200 and as the second university in Italy. The NTU Taiwan ranking for 2018 sets UNITO at the 171st place over the 500 top universities worldwide, and at the 6th place in Italy. UNITO is also 55th over 600+ worldwide and 2nd in Italy in the 2018 ranking by GreenMetrics, assessing the environmental and social sustainability of academic activities and infrastructures. With reference to the most recent national evaluation of the Italian university system (VQR 2011-2014), UNITO is ranked in the top three Italian universities in nine scientific areas out of 16.

Established in 1878 as the Southern Hemisphere’s first dedicated agricultural college, Lincoln University exists to enhance lives and grow the future. Its purpose is to facilitate excellent research and education to grow the knowledge of our students and help shape a world that benefits from a greater understanding of the relationship between land, food and ecosystems.

The university provides an environment that enables students and researchers to grow into their potential, to become thought leaders who will grow the future and enhance and enrich the lives of others for generations to come. Lincoln has an environment that nurtures and facilitates growth in all areas of development: physical, emotional, intellectual, financial and societal. Lincoln University facilitates great learning and growth through applied research, cultivation of deep industry relationships, world-class modern learning environments and teaching, global connections and collaborations, and by ensuring that what we teach is relevant today and tomorrow.

CVUT is the Czech oldest technical university (established in 1707), second largest university in the Czech Republic and it belongs to one of the top research institutions in the country. It consists of eight faculties and educates in total ca. 24000 students. Faculty of Civil Engineering, having more than 6000 students, belongs to largest faculties. As a big academic body, CVUT has broad economic and administrative support, attends in number of national and international research projects and has also very close relations with commercial sector.

The Department of Landscape Water Conservation currently employs 20 staff and 20 Ph.D. students. The research is oriented mainly to surface and subsurface water management, landscape and land-use stability. The particular fields of interest are soil science, groundwater hydraulics, drainage systems and structures, special engineering drainage measures, irrigation systems and structures, watershed protection and management, construction of ponds and special reservoirs, water management, and complex environmental problems related to landscape design and conservation, including the process of environmental impact assessment. GIS tools and advanced numerical models are extensively used for most of listed activities.

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the seventh largest in the world with the mission to foster, coordinate, develop and promote scientific and technological research, of a multidisciplinary nature.

Two institutes from CSIC are involved in TUdi:

The Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS) was established in 1992. IAS has the specific objective of studying the sustainability of agricultural Mediterranean systems, such as dryland and irrigated herbaceous crops and olive orchards, in order to harmonize food production with conservation of natural resources and environmental protection.

The objective of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences (ICA) is to provide the CSIC and the Spanish society with a center of excellence in agricultural and environmental research to address the challenges that modern and specialized European agriculture poses on the environment and the sustainability of natural resources. Its research lines focus on the growing demand of safe and high-quality agricultural products, improved municipal and agricultural waste management, and more sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural practices.

AgriSat is an SME based in Albacete (Spain), which operates globally. It was founded in May 2014 as a spin-off of a series of EU and national projects. These projects have all been dedicated to the development and demonstration of the operational use of Earth observation (EO) and webGIS for water management and farm advisory. AgriSat’s founding partners are an interdisciplinary group of scientists of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, ICT developers, agronomists, farm consultants, and farmers. As such, it draws on 20 years of experience in leading-edge technology, rigorously tested and applied as decision support tools in operational irrigation and farm management in a wide range of environments.

Some of its founding partners have been among the world-wide pioneers of the technology as well as of its integration in a holistic perspective and innovative participatory development and validation approaches. The mission of AgriSat is to make this knowledge and the corresponding easy-to-use tools widely available to the water and agriculture sectors and thus, to help farmers save water, energy, and inputs while maintaining or increasing yields and ultimately increase farm profitability in an overall context of sustainable agriculture.

Established in 1964, The University of Lancaster is now ranked in the top ten UK researchintensive universities. It has 12000 students (∼30% postgraduate) and 2500 staff, and is the first UK University to open a campus in Africa (in Ghana). Benefiting from > £35m+ of new investment, the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) forms one of the largest groups of environmental researchers in Europe, allowing integrative studies of terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric systems from molecular to global scales.

This ‘environmental campus’ provides extensive, state-of-the-art research laboratories (including excellent facilities for chemical, biochemical and biological analysis), 15 glasshouses and 10 walk-in controlled environment rooms. TUDI will also benefit from LEC’s field sites that include a range of arable and grassland sites covering the main agricultural activities in North West of England. This includes access to long-term grassland/arable management experiments (rotations, maize, barley, Lolium sp., covercrops) at the Myerscough Agricultural College and crop diversity manipulation experiments located at Colt Park in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (Cole et al. 2019) that have been researched for over 25 years.

The Centre for Agricultural Research (ATK), the largest agricultural research complex in Hungary, carries out basic and applied research and development in the field of agricultural sciences, participates in the dissemination of professional and scientific knowledge, and works in cooperation with organisations involved in agriculture, the food industry, rural development, environment protection and sustainable development, at both national and international levels.

Soils represent a considerable part of the natural resources of Hungary. Consequently, their rational utilization, conservation and the maintenance of their multipurpose functionality have particular significance for both the national economy and environment protection. ATK focuses among others also on research on the consequences of climate change for processes involved in the soil, water, material and energy cycles and the quality of surface waters, on relationship between crop yield, soil hydraulic properties and environmental factors.