Events

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Events organised by ZALF or in which we are deeply involved. Please visit also our German website.

For more information about the contact persons named, please refer to About Us > Contact Search.

You will find further events on our German website.

Upcoming events

Tropentag 2023 - Topic: Competing pathways for equitable food systems transformation: trade-offs and synergies
20.09.2023, 13:00 Uhr - 22.09.2023, 17:00 Uhr
Category: Conference/symposium
Tropentag is an annual international conference on research in tropical and subtropical agriculture, natural re-source management and rural development.The conference is jointly organised by ZALF and the Council for Tropical and Subtropical Research (ATSAF e.V) in co-operation with the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. It brings together scientists, students, graduates, development experts and funding organisations from several countries in central Europe and their various international partner institutions.
Tropentag is a development-oriented and interdisciplinary conference. It addresses issues of resource and environmental management, agricultural production, forestry, fisheries, food, nutrition and related sciences in the context of international rural development, sustainable resource use, hunger and poverty alleviation worldwide.
Tropentag 2023 is a hybrid conference to be held at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from September 20-22, 2023, to which all scientists, students, and experts working on topics in the above areas are invited. Young scientists are especially encouraged to present their research projects and results. About 700 scientists are expected to participate in Berlin or online.
Location: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Organiser: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Tropische und Subtropische Agrarforschung e.V. (ATSAF)
Contact person: Stefan Sieber
URL: Tropentag 2023

Events in the past

SIDE EVENT SESSION AT THE FAO SCIENCE AND INNOVATION FORUM 2022: Integrating sustainable and inclusive energy technologies into agrifoodsystems in East Africa
13.10.2022, 11:00 Uhr - 13.10.2022, 12:30 Uhr
Category: Other
Access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy is vital for production, post-harvest management and cooking of food. While the need for transforming agrifood systems is certain, the debate on how this transformation should take place has not yet resulted in definitive conclusions and strategies. This side-event will address the current advances and opportunities for a more efficient, inclusive and sustainable energy consumption in agrifood systems. The speakers will highlight the role of renewable energy technologies on transforming agrifood systems as well as the current knowledge on best practices and approaches to drive a more inclusive and gendered innovation development.

Location: virtual Zoom
Organiser: ZALF (Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries SusLAND) and Universidade Lúrio
Contact person: Custódio Matavel
URL: Flyer and Registration Link
Webinar: Bending the curve of biodiversity loss - How can agriculture become part of the solution?
04.05.2022, 12:00 Uhr - 04.05.2022, 13:30 Uhr
Category: Seminar
Agricultural transformation – what do farmers and researchers tell us? On 4th May 2022, the second webinar of the Bayer-funded project "Enhancing Biodiversity and Resilience in Crop Production" will take place and focusses on the collaboration among researchers, farmers and businesses. The webinar is co-hosted by ZALF.
Location: Virtuell - Zoom
Organiser: Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung, ETH Zürich, World Food System Center (WFSC), Bayer, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Contact person: Sibylle Krickel
URL: More Info and Registration
Landscape 2021 - Diversification for Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture
20.09.2021, 08:00 Uhr - 22.09.2021, 16:00 Uhr
Category: Conference/symposium
The Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), together with international partners, is organizing the Landscape 2021 Conference from 20 to 22 September 2021. The conference will focus on the question whether and how diversification in agriculture contributes to resilience and sustainability. The event thus addresses current research topics between the conflicting priorities of climate change, food security and sustainability. The event brings together scientists from various disciplines with multipliers from politics, society, and practitioners.
Location: Erwin-Schrödinger-Zentrum, Rudower Chaussee 26, 12489 Berlin
Organiser: Leibniz Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) e.V.
Contact person: Heike Schobert
URL: More info on Landscape 2021
PhD Day 2021
02.09.2021, 09:00 Uhr - 02.09.2021, 18:00 Uhr
Category: PHD-Day
We are happy to announce that this year’s PhD-Day will take place on the 2nd of September (9:30 h -18:00 h).
We hereby invite all interested persons to this event that will include a keynote, PhD presentations, workshops, elevator pitches and a barbecue at the end of the day (see attached poster).
The topic of the PhD-day 2021 is: “Bioeconomic and alternative perspectives within and beyond science: How can our research contribute to creating a sustainable and just society?”
Depending on the pandemic situation in September, this event will be either take place in person at the ZALF Campus or online.
We are looking forward to seeing many of you during this day.
In order to ensure Corona hygiene measures, if ZALF externals are interested in participating, we ask that they pre-register at ecr-coord@zalf.de.
Jonathan Friedrich & Mariel Davies
PhD representatives ZALF 2021

Location: Haus 4
Organiser: Direktorat
Contact person: Lea Nitz
URL: Poster PhD Day 2021
Resilience and Food Security in North and West African Economies: Sustainable Farming Strategies and Household Policy Options
17.08.2021, 08:00 Uhr - 31.08.2021, 18:00 Uhr
Category: Conference/symposium
Organized Symposium for the 31st International Conference of Agricultural Economists, Online (17-31. 08.2021. The objective is to examine the diverse options that are available to households in North and West African economies for building resilient and sustainable agro-food systems to enhance household food security and climate change adaptability. The session aims to shed light on policy options for increasing their resilience to food security shocks as well as strategies for adopting more sustainable and efficient farming practices. The panel will be held by a group of experts from UDS (Ghana), WUR (Netherlands), ZALF (Germany), IFAD (Egypt) and ILO (Morocco). Target audience are researchers in the field of agricultural and development economics working with the area of sustainable farming system and resilient agro-food system; policy makers in African countries; NGOs and international development agencies working with resilience.
Location: virtually (online)
Organiser: Fatima Lehnhardt
Contact person: Fatima Lehnhardt
URL: 31ST International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE) (VIRTUAL)
Integrated Earth System Research - Challenges, Approaches and Impacts
29.06.2021, 13:00 Uhr - 30.06.2021, 14:00 Uhr
Category: Workshop
Organised by Leibniz Research Network "Integrated Earth System Research"
For detailed information on that event please see the pdf in the attachment.
Location: virtual
Organiser: ZALF & Leibniz Research Network "Integrated Earth System Research"
Contact person: Lea Nitz
URL: Detailed Programme
patchCROP Field Robotics Workshop 2021
05.05.2021, 09:00 Uhr - 05.05.2021, 16:00 Uhr
Category: Workshop
The field robotics workshop offers presentations by international field robotics experts from science and industry, field demonstrations of robotics for interested parties from science and practice and an ideas competition on future application possibilities in patchCROP.
The aims of the workshop are to present agronomic problems and requirements of field robots in field crops, a discussion on development possibilities of field robotics and digital technologies in diversified cultivation systems as well as opportunities for cooperation and networking for future project applications.
Due to the current situation, the number of participants is limited and registration is required. If you are interested in participating simply register at https://patchcrop.eventbrite.de.
Location: Tempelberg
Organiser: ZALF & Komturei Lietzen
Contact person: Kathrin Grahmann
URL: Registration for participation
ZALF - Guest Lecture -Prof. Dr. Jörg Overmann, Leibniz Institute DSMZ
14.04.2021, 11:00 Uhr - 14.04.2021, 13:00 Uhr
Category: Guest lecture

Bacterial diversity and its role in soil ecosystems

Prof. Jörg Overmann
Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Culture Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Braunschweig

Short abstract: Culture-independent studies have revealed that just 1 gram of soil may contain about 50,000 different bacterial species, representing the most diverse microbial communities on Earth. Estimates of the global bacterial diversity even exceed 1 billion species. By comparison, the number of bacterial species that are described and hence available for detailed physiological and biochemical characterization amounts to just 17,000. Microbes are the major drivers of biogeochemical transformations, hence their diversity, functions and interactions need to be resolved in order to arrive at a causal understanding of the soil ecosystem. This has now become possible with the advent of modern molecular, bioinformatics, and cultivation-based approaches.

Wednesday, 14 April at 11 am, virtuell via Go -To - Meeting
Location: ZALF, Konferenzraum 1 - Haus 4
Organiser: Direktorat
Contact person: Anke Hollburg
URL: ZALF Guest Lecture Prof. Overmann - Announcement
International Workshop: Scenarios for legume protein in European agricultural systems
01.10.2020, 08:30 Uhr - 02.10.2020, 15:30 Uhr
Category: Workshop
Diversification with grain legumes could reduce fertilizer and pesticide use and increase domestic plant protein production and consumption in Europe. Besides, legumes could improve the resilience of European farming systems to the socio-economic and climatic variability, enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services, and contribute to novel food systems.
The workshop aims to develop a set of novel future scenarios for better-utilizing grain legumes with a focus on food systems in Europe by addressing the following questions:
- What impact do change consumption patterns have on grain legume production?
- How does climate change affect future protein supply?
- How does global protein demand change resulting from continuous population growth?
Based on the developed scenarios a scientific publication will be developed and all participants are invited to contribute.
Location: Leibniz Association, Chausseestraße 111, 10115 Berlin
Organiser: ZALF
Contact person: Moritz Reckling
URL: Workshop website
PhD Day 2020
10.09.2020, 09:30 Uhr - 10.09.2020, 18:00 Uhr
Category: PHD-Day
Join us during PhD Day 2020 on September 10th 2020!
In its general research strategy, ZALF aims to answer a very important question: “How do we feed a growing world population without harming the climate, the environment and natural resources?”
Yet, are the many PhD projects supervised at ZALF in line with this goal? What are current research gaps? And are there research topics not sufficiently represented in the strategy?
We want to take this year’s PhD Day as an opportunity to reflect these questions in hands-on presentations, workshops and a final discussion.
We will be happy to meet you there!
In order to ensure the corona hygiene measures, PhD Day takes place exclusively virtually. If you are interested in participating, we kindly ask ZALF-external persons to pre-register at ecr-coord@zalf.de

Siyu Huang, Christoph Schulze und Karoline Hemminger
Doctoral representatives 2020
Location: virtuell
Organiser: PhD Representatives & Direktorat
Contact person: Lea Nitz
URL: Poster & Programme PhD Day 2020
How to make the best of your data
19.08.2020, 13:00 Uhr - 19.08.2020, 15:00 Uhr
Category: Workshop
Science heavily relies on data, and research generates a lot of data. However, managing research data is often deemed an unpleasant and tedious task. ZALF staff is invited to learn how the Research Platform Data Analysis and Simulation (RDS) service groups can help
- to manage your data in an efficient way;
- to safeguard your data;
- to fulfil the requirements of funding organisations;
- to select appropriate licences;
- to increase reputation;
- to gain visibility and the credit that you deserve;
- to research and to assess existing data.
Online access on request. Please contact Daniel Thiel
Location: Konferenzraum 1, Haus 4
Organiser: FDS ZALF
Contact person: Daniel Thiel
Webinar: Participation in NFDI4Agri - Community Workshop
15.07.2020, 10:00 Uhr - 15.07.2020, 15:00 Uhr
Category: Workshop
On 15th July 2020, NFDI4Agri will organize the first virtual workshop with and for the agricultural science community. NFDI4agri would like to introduce itself and engage in a direct exchange with you to learn about your needs for research data management and to involve you in our developments.
Content of the workshop:
● 10-12 am.: Presentation of the consortium NFDI4Agri
● 13-15 pm.: Opportunities for participation

The consortium NFDI4Agri (National Research Data Infrastructure for Agricultural Sciences) is a cooperation of various agricultural science research institutions in which ZALF is involved. The consortium is concerned with the development of a research data infrastructure for agricultural sciences that is unique worldwide. Prof. Dr. Frank Ewert (ZALF) is the spokesman of NFDI4Agri.
Location: Webinar
Organiser: NFDI4Agri
Contact person: Nikolai Svoboda
URL: For participation, please register online before 10th July 2020.
ZALF Guest Lecture
11.03.2020, 11:00 Uhr - 11.03.2020, 13:00 Uhr
Category: Guest lecture
The Third Wave of AI: Closing the Gap between AI and the Domain Experts
Prof. Dr. Kristian Kersting Head of the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Group, TU Darmstadt
Deep neural networks have shown excellent performances in many real-world applications such as plant phenotyping. Unfortunately, they generally do not know when they do know and may show "Clever Hans"-like behaviour — making use of confounding factors within datasets — to achieve high prediction rates. In this talk, propose to not "go down the full neural road." Instead I shall argue to use e.g. sum-product networks, a deep but tractable architecture for probability distributions. They "know when they duo not know" and even pave the way towards automating density estimation, making machine learning accessible to a broader audience of non-experts.
Location: ZALF, Konferenzraum 1 - Haus 4
Organiser: ZALF
Contact person: Anke Hollburg / Ulrike Hagemann
URL: Guest Lecture Prof. Kristian Kersting
ZALF Guest Lecture
12.02.2020, 11:00 Uhr - 12.02.2020, 13:00 Uhr
Category: Guest lecture
Presenter: Dr. Katja Klumpp
French National Institute for Agricultural Research | INRA Department of Forest, Grassland and Freshwater Ecology
Title: Grazing management for soil organic matters

There are still uncertainties on the magnitude of C sequestration poten-tial, and their use in climate initiatives (i.e. 4p1000). Average values of 0.2 to 0.7 tC ha-1yr-1 been cited, while soil inventories reported only 0.05 tC ha-1yr-1 (e.g. Soussana et al., 2010). These discrepancies can be attributed to differences in pedo-climatic conditions, intensity and type of management, but also to age and live-time of grasslands. To analyse in detail C sequestration potential of French grasslands, a national study “4p1000 France“ was conducted (see Pellerin et al., 2019) to identify promising C "storing" practices, to be adopted as mitigation option.
Location: ZALF, Konferenzraum 1 - Haus 4
Organiser: ZALF
Contact person: Anke Hollburg / Ulrike Hagemann
URL: ZALF Guest Lecture - Dr. Katja Klumpp
ZALF Guest Lecture
13.11.2019, 11:00 Uhr - 13.11.2019, 13:00 Uhr
Category: Guest lecture
Presenter: Dr. Miguel D. Mahecha
Leader of the research group: Empirical Inference of the Earth System at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Titel: Towards a global multivariate understanding of climate extremes
Abstract: Today we have the opportunity to analyze and understand the Earth system with a variety of in-situ and Earth Observations (EO). But before we can tap into the full potential of these data streams we need to overcome many practical hurdles. In this talk I will first discuss novel data-analytic approaches to explore multivariate dynamics in the Earth system. Then I will specifically discussion the question how climate extremes affect terrestrial ecosystems. We will present a global scale, multivariate view on climate extremes and discuss the potentials and limitations of our approach to disentangle the underlying ecological processes.
Link: https://www.earthsystemdatalab.net
Location: ZALF, Konferenzraum 1 - Haus 4
Organiser: ZALF
Contact person: Anke Hollburg / Ulrike Hagemann
URL: ZALF Guest Lecture