MitgliedPeter Messerli

Peter Messerli is Professor for Sustainable Development and the director of the Wyss Academy for Nature at the University of Bern, Switzerland. As a land system scientist and human geographer, his research interests lie in the sustainable development of social-ecological systems in Africa and Asia. He focuses on increasingly globalized and competing claims on land, rural transformation processes, and spatial manifestations of their outcomes in the Global South. He has worked more than 10 years in Africa and Asia and was the director of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) at the University of Bern from 2009 to 2020. Peter Messerli occupies many functions in advising and guiding governmental, scientific, and civil-society organisations related to sustainable development focusing on the interface between science, policy, and society. He has been the co-chair of the Global Land Programme (GLP) of Future Earth and he was appointed by the UN Secretary General to lead the group of Independent Scientists to write the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) 2019. In 2023 he has been appointed as a fellow of the International Science Council (ISC) in recognition of outstanding contributions to promoting science as a global public good. 

He has been a member of Heidelberg University’s Academic Advisory Council since 2024.