The University Alliance Ruhr submitted a total of four full proposals for Clusters of Excellence to the DFG on August 22, 2024. These include the proposal for the research project “REASONS - river ecosystems in the anthropocene, sustainable scientific solutions”, in which Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martina Flörke is involved with the Chair of Engineering Hydrology and Water Management.

Back in February, the research consortium was able to prevail in a high-caliber competitive environment with its preliminary application for REASONS. The full proposal has now followed. The Excellence Commission's decision on which of the outstanding national research teams will be awarded the contract is scheduled for May 2025. The commission is made up of 39 experts from various disciplines and the federal and state science ministers.

The consequences of climate change, such as droughts and floods, material pollution in water bodies and changes in biodiversity, require a new, sustainable approach to future-proof water management. As part of the REASONS cluster initiative, an interdisciplinary research team is working on an innovative approach to this changing system. New measurement, modeling and analysis methods are being researched and irreversible changes to watercourses are being taken into account. The interdisciplinary research team is led by Prof. Dr. Bernd Sures (University of Duisburg-Essen), Prof. Dr. Torsten Claus Schmidt (University of Duisburg-Essen) and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martina Flörke (Ruhr University Bochum). In addition to the researchers from the two universities, the team includes members from Goethe University Frankfurt, Philipps University Marburg, the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and the Leibniz Institute for Environmental Research.