We have expected a major improvement of the UFZ impact within the scientific community—however, a quantification was not attempted. We also expect a continuation of this positive trend for at least another two to three years.

In order to be able to develop integrated solutions rather than a singular response to singular problems, the UFZ has come up with an ambitious research program. In this program our wide variety of expertise with more than 30 natural science and five social science departments is integrated covering many fields of environmental research.

The UFZ research program comprises 12 research themes ranging from natural resources to contamination and health aspects, all of them contributing to the overall thematic framework "Sustainable Use of Landscapes." These research themes are:

• Temporal and spatial trends in climate change
• Sustainable urban development and quality of life
• New strategies for the management of contaminated land and groundwater
• Remediation and sustainable use of mining landscapes
• Microbial diversity in environment and health
• Biodiversity, ecosystem function and ecosystem stability
• Integrated management of water resources
• Governance, institutions and policy for sustainability
• Integrated assessment and decision support
• Protection and regeneration of water resources
• Sustainable synthesis and catalysis
• Health and Environment

The UFZ base funding depends on public money from the German Federal Government (90%) and the State Governments of Saxony (5%) as well as Saxony-Anhalt (5%). It therefore develops its research program in response to the general needs of these major stakeholders. Furthermore, the UFZ should identify and respond to environmental concerns observed at the local, regional, and—where applicable—at a global scale. It has the mandate to develop practical solutions together with other research institutions as well as the industry and to get actively involved in supporting decision- and policy-makers at all levels.

So far, and most likely still for a very long time into the future, environmental researchers will need to focus their effort on the identification of the key processes controlling environmental issues of concern, such as climate change, accumulation of contaminants, desertification etc. However, at the same time a more efficient integration of the vast existing knowledge is necessary in order to provide already today at least some preliminary answers to the big challenges of the environmental field. For example, in response to the growing human demand for natural resources we need to develop better technologies with better efficiencies (e.g., in the field of energy) and make available sources which promise a sustainable perspective (e.g., bioenergy).

We believe that in the future, successful environmental research programs will have to adopt a broader perspective than today. They will need to combine the resources conservation and allocation, the technical and economical optimisation as well as the governance aspects of a problem in order to offer sustainable solutions which can be successfully implemented. However, we are still at the beginning in our understanding of how to effectively manage such programs.

We need to develop the ability to generate realistic "pictures of the future" for the continental environment similar to those developed in marine and atmospheric science. Due to the much better accessibility of data and the direct interaction with the human being at various scales, this scenario generation requires a complex integration of the distributed knowledge. Such scenarios will certainly help in transporting the results of the UFZ research programs to the decision makers. The UFZ has already successfully demonstrated its ability to integrate natural and social science in the field of practical environmental research and considers this as critical for its future success.

We believe that the UFZ approach in dealing with complex environmental problems will become more and more accepted by the stakeholders in and outside the scientific community. Of course, moving towards more integrated solutions for environmental challenges makes it necessary to develop a multitude of national and international co-operations and to participate in networks. A very good example of a strategic alliance within Europe is the Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER), with the seven largest European environmental research centres represented. At present, PEER works towards a combined research strategy, with the UFZ being one of the participating institutes.