Research & Development

In 2003, Prof. Dr. Andreas Schulte was appointed to the newly created Chair of Forest Ecology, Forestry and Timber Management at the University of Münster Department of Earth Sciences. He is also a co-opted member of the Faculty of Economics. Since 2004 he has as well been managing partner at Wald-Consult Ltd., a start-up based in Birmingham, England, which, in response to Brexit, on January 1, 2019 was reconstituted as SilvaVest GmbH, based in Münster, Germany. The Chair also carried with it the office of Chairman of the Internationales Institut für Wald und Holz NRW e.V. at the University of Münster, which Prof. Schulte, a founding member of the organisation, held until it relocated to Canada in 2017.

As part of the non-profit institute’s research and development activities, Prof. Schulte has coordinated and taken academic responsibility for a number of large European Union-funded research projects, including the SecureChain – Sustainable Bioenergy Chains project (European Commission grant agreement 646457, December 2014) which involved 11 partners from 8 EU countries.

Insights from 15 supervised dissertations, more than 100 academic publications, six textbooks, results from a large number of nationally and internationally funded research and development projects, more than 10 international conferences, etc. form the academic basis for SilvaVest GmbH’s consulting activities and have also laid the foundations for its network of international contacts.