Interim President Prof. Dr Jörg Lahner receives honorary doctorate in Peru
With this honour, the Peruvian partner university recognises the close collaboration between HAWK and UNTRM, which has developed over many years. The foundations for this were laid by the former HAWK President, Prof. Dr Martin Thren, who initiated the cooperation with UNTRM: as early as July 2011, the partnership in teaching and research was further strengthened through an initial institutional framework agreement covering the areas of sustainable forestry, land use and biodiversity, as well as renewable energies (particularly biogas) and environmental and agricultural sustainability.
Since then, a close academic exchange has developed between the two universities. Today, this is primarily continued within the framework of the CIPDES PhD programme (UNTRM) and the ‘Sustainable Resource Management in Latin America’ research and education network, as part of the ‘Green Engineering and Ecosystems’ research focus at HAWK, by Prof. Dr Helge Walentowski and Dr Jürgen Homeier.
“To be the first recipient of an honorary doctorate and the first president of a German university to be honoured here is a tremendous honour. Above all, it pays tribute to the work of my colleagues who have built up this partnership over the years – and at the same time, it is a promise to further strengthen it in the future,” said Lahner at the award ceremony.
Dr Jorge Luis Maicelo Quintana, Vice-Chancellor of UNTRM, emphasised the great significance of the partnership: “Dr Lahner has not only received this honorary doctorate, the highest honour our university can bestow upon a figure from a foreign higher education institution – he is also taking part in our international symposium on the sciences of sustainable development, which significantly enhances the training of our PhD students. We are confident that our partnership and institutional cooperation will continue to deepen in the coming years.”
The awarding of the honorary doctorate was part of the celebrations marking the 26th anniversary of the UNTRM.
Founded in 2000, the UNTRM is the first university in the Amazonas region. It has rapidly established itself within the Peruvian higher education landscape as a university with a particularly strong research focus, and its range of subjects shows significant overlap with those offered by HAWK.
On the final day of the delegation’s visit, a Memorandum of Understanding was also jointly signed to strengthen cooperation. This provides for the development of joint projects in the future and will continue to facilitate exchanges of students, lecturers and researchers.
A recorded Facebook Live stream of the ceremony is available here: https://www.facebook.com/untrm.a/videos/1452870560071583/?locale=de_DE (Prof. Dr Jörg Lahner’s speech begins at 31:50)
