Defying climate change with the knowledge of the many - Citizen Science Preis for Selani Thomas

The Münster University Foundation and the department Knowledge and Technology Transfer are awarding Selani Thomas, recent master graduate at the Institute of Geoinformatics, one of the prizes at the Citizen Science Competition. Thomas' research project, supervised by Prof. Angela Schwering and in cooperation with Lugao Kasberg from the organisation “Mangyans for Peace and Sustainable Development”, focussed on the connection between climate change, food insecurity and the scope for action in the Hanunoo-Mangyan community on the island of Mindoro on the Philippines. The award ceremony will take place on 21 April. 

GI Forum in the summer semester 2026

The first event at the GI Forum this summer semester will take place on Tuesday, 21 April at 12 am. Prof. Ute Schmid from the University of Bamberg will give a talk on the topic ‘Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence: Explainable Interactive Machine Learning for Human–AI Teams’. The GI Forum talks are held in room 242, GEO 1. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Funding received for a new German-Korean collaboration

The SPARC lab, led by Prof. Dr. Jakub Krukar and the Human-Centered Interior Environment Lab led by Prof. Ji Young Cho at Kyung Hee University in Seoul have received joint funding from the German Research Foundation and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The project is titled "Measuring mental representations of complex 3D structures for wayfinding: bringing together geoinformatics Virtual Reality tools and domain-specific psychometric spatial ability tests". The collaboration will involve mutual research visits of 3-4 weeks (Jakub in Seoul, Ji Young in Münster) over the upcoming years.

New Research Project: SPACE-EYE

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved a new research project to analyze the link between walking trajectories and eye-movement trajectories. The project, entitled "SPACE-EYE: Spatial and Architectural Evidence from Movement-Aware Eye-Tracking," is led by Prof. Dr. Jakub Krukar. The research will combine mobile eye-tracking and motion data to build a computational framework that models gaze and locomotion together in realistic architectural environments. This has implications for areas interested in modelling how people move through and view space, e.g. in signage planning, or emergency evacuation scenarios.

© Thomas Bartoschek

Mobility Award NRW 2025 for "Essen on Wheels"

The "Essen on Wheels" project has achieved 3rd place in the Mobility Award NRW. The award was presented on December 8th by Transport Minister Oliver Krischer as part of Mobility Day NRW. This project, a joint effort of the IFGI and the Institute for Didactics of Geography, involved collecting data on cycling traffic using the senseBox:bike, with the support of dedicated cycling initiatives such as the ADFC Essen e.V. and students from six Essen schools. The project aimed to promote data literacy, climate protection, and education. Running from December 2022 to November 2025, the project was funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation. The €5,000 prize money will now be used to further develop the project. The goal is to establish and expand the project approach to other schools and municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany. We thank everyone who has continuously supported the project and cast their vote!