IASS General Assembly Farewells Board of Directors
25.11.2022
The General Assembly of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. convened for its annual meeting on 24 November 2022. As part of the legal integration of the IASS into the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, effective from 1 January 2023, the General Assembly voted to approve the signing of the transfer agreement by the Institute’s Board of Directors. The General Assembly also adopted a resolution to liquidate the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V., which transferred its research activities to the GFZ on 31 December 2022.
The liquidation of the registered association will take place over a 12-month period beginning on 1 January 2023. Christiane Neumann, a former member of the IASS Advisory Board, was appointed as the official Liquidator. She will legally represent the association during this process and is responsible for its proper completion. The General Assembly elected Karin Lochte for a further term of office as the Chair of the association through to the conclusion of the liquidation period. Christian Alecke from the BMBF (Department 721) will replace Volker Rieke as Vice Chair.
With the beginning of the liquidation phase, the previous Board of Directors is relieved of its legal responsibility for the association. The General Assembly will continue to exist until the association is dissolved. The members of the General Assembly thanked the Institute’s scientific directors, Mark Lawrence and Ortwin Renn, for their cooperation over the past years and highlighted their contributions to the Institute’s successful evaluation by the German Science and Humanities Council and integration into the GFZ and the Helmholtz Association, which has secured a long term perspective for the IASS. The two directors bid farewell and thanked the Chair for successfully and confidently leading the General Assembly over many years.
The mandate of the IASS Advisory Board also expires with the Institute’s integration into the GFZ. At the Advisory Board’s final meeting on 24 October 2022, the Institute’s Board of Directors thanked the members of the Advisory Board for the valuable input they provided over many years, which has shaped the Institute and laid the foundations for its successful evaluation. Special thanks were due to Jorge Vasconcelos, who chaired the Advisory Board from 2016 and played a crucial role in guiding the work of the Advisory Board, Directors and General Assembly over many years. The model has "more than proved its worth," according to the Board of Directors, and the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) will also be guided by an Advisory Board, which will be constituted in the course of 2023.
