The Faculty of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture (University of Belgrade) and Geisenheim’s Department of Landscape Planning and Nature Conservation intend to join forces in research and teaching. Funded by the ERASMUS+ Program, members of the KULT Competence Center Cultural Landscape and the Department of Landscape Planning and Nature Conservation visited the Faculty of Forestry of the University of Belgrade.

A cooperation agreement between the two institutions was already signed in 2020 but due to the pandemic, any personal exchange had to be postponed. To explore future collaborations Prof. Dr. Eckhard Jedicke, Dr. Martin Reiss, Dr. Jörn Schultheiß and Katharina Adler visited Serbia from May 23, 2022 to May 31, 2022 where they discussed possible projects and collaborative courses as well as joint doctoral programs with their Serbian colleagues, notably Prof. Dr. Jelena Tomićević-Dubljević and Prof. Dr. Ivana Lozjanin. As a first project, a joint student seminar on the digitization of cultivated landscapes in Serbia is scheduled for October in Belgrade. Further topics which were discussed during excursions and a visit to the National Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia included the sustainable development of meadow landscapes with forests, grasslands and wetlands along the Danube and the Sava river, small-scale agricultural and forest landscapes as well as the management of protected areas and cultural heritage