Commission for Mountain Research
The Commission for Mountain Research at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities was founded on May 7, 2001, two years after the Academy had become a member of the International Commission for Alpine Research (ISCAR). ISCAR is an association comprising the Swiss Academies of Sciences in Bern, the Slovenska Akademija znanosti in umetnosti in Ljubljana, the Pôle Européen universitaire et scientifique in Grenoble, the Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica sulla Montage in Rome, the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich.
The Commission, as a member of ISCAR, has the following aims:
- to ensure the continuity and scientific quality of the "AlpenForum", an international conference held every two years in one of the alpine countries. To that end it is necessary to contact qualified German scientists as lecturers, presenters or participants in the AlpenForum meetings. The AlpenForum, since its first conference in Disentis (Switzerland) in 1994, covers a wide range of issues from the assessment and presentation of comprehensive data on the alpine regions to possible changes in their development and visions of what the Alps should be like in the next generation.
- to establish interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of mountain research in all alpine countries and to promote the transfer of research results. To that end an inventory of current mountain research in Germany had to be made. In May 2001, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities was therefore host to a round-table meeting of representatives of German research groups already operating in the field. The meeting aimed at establishing guidelines on integrating German research interests in future mountain research programmes.
- to initiate research projects relevant for alpine research and to implement them in international research programmes. To give an example, the Commission for Glaciology at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities is one of the partners in the GLOWA research project (Global Change of the Water Cycle) which focusses on the development of integrated strategies for a sustainable and foresighted management of water and water bodies.
- to promote research interests of the Alpine Convention and to act as an advisory board for the bodies of the Alpine Convention. Since 2000 ISCAR takes part in the meetings of the Alpine Conference as an observer, among other non-governmental organisations. This position is routinely filled by ISCAR-members of the country chairing the Alpine Conference. Apart from its work at ISCAR, the Commission for Mountain Research aims at promoting the interdisciplinary cooperation within the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities on mountain research. Therefore members of various disciplines of both classes at the Academy have been appointed members of the Commission. During the International Year of the Mountains, in 2002, the Commission organized an interdisciplinary workshop on "The Alps: Landscape and Living Space" as well as an open day themed "Gipfelstürmer", at which various commissions of the Academy, together with other scientific institutions, presented themselves to the public.
View from the Zugspitzblatt across the main ridges of the Alps. Photo: Stefan Schütz/Look