The Institute
About us
The Institute for Sustainable Water Systems focuses on applied research and development in the key areas of sponge city, sustainability, photonics and food production.
Foundation
The Institute for Sustainable Water Systems at Hof University of Applied Sciences (inwa) was founded in March 2023 as part of the subject-related division of its predecessor, the Institute for Water and Energy Management (iwe). As a result of the strong development of the two main research areas of water and energy, it was useful to make these two areas independent in view of the research challenges posed by climate change, the energy crisis and increasing extreme weather events.
Our philosophy
inwa focuses on the initiation and implementation of application-oriented research and innovation development for partners from industry and the municipal sector. In addition to the specialist areas of sponge city, photonics, food production and project management, sustainability and digitalisation are increasingly becoming research topics in their own right. At the same time, they are part of many research activities as a cross-sectional discipline. The transfer of knowledge from research results into practice is becoming increasingly important as a further area of activity. This involves not only analysing the state of research in such a way that the results can be used by users in practice. In addition, special methods are being developed to make the transfer of knowledge more practice-orientated and to effectively support small and medium-sized enterprises and local authorities in particular in coping with increasingly complex challenges.
Contact person
Organisation
The inwa is managed by an institute management consisting of all research group leaders. One member of the institute management takes on the role of spokesperson for the external presentation of inwa and represents the organisation of the institute.
Prof Günter Müller-Czygan
Institute Director; Research Group Leader
Water infrastructure and digitalisation (DiWa)
Prof Dr Manuela Wimmer
Deputy Head of Institute; Research Group Leader
Sustainability and project management in water management (NaPro)
Dr Harvey Harbach
Research group leader
Resource-efficient food production in integrated aquaculture (ReLe)
Prof. Dr Tobias Schnabel
Research group leader
Photonics and water (PhoWa)
Christian Wagner
Public relations work of the institute
Sustainability and project management in water management (NaPro)
Dr Julia Frank
Institute and research coordination
Martina Monien-Zeh
Assistance
Contact person
Professors/research group leaders
Water infrastructure and digitalisation (DiWa)
Sustainability and project management in water management (NaPro)
Resource-efficient food production in integrated aquaculture (ReLe)
Become part of the Institute for Sustainable Water Systems
Career and academic theses
Job offers and project, Bachelor's or Master's theses - you've come to the right place.
Contact us
We look forward to hearing from you.
Address
Institute for Sustainable Water Systems
Alfons-Goppel-Platz 1
95028 Hof
EN 
DE