The University of Lüneburg has recently appointed Professor Dr. Mario Schmidt from Pforzheim University to honorary professor. Research that combines different disciplines and looks for solutions of concrete environmental problems is a matter of course for the professor of ecological management. Mario Schmidt supplies with his research and his activities a significant transfer in politics, business and society. His approach embodies to a great extent also the transdisciplinary research approach at the University of Lüneburg. "Actually, he is personalized transdisciplinarity", the President of the Leuphana, Professor Dr. Sascha Spoun, said on the occasion of the inaugural lecture in Lüneburg.

The academic honor intensifies the existing good cooperation between the Professor and Leuphana. Mario Schmidt, director of the Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), teaches and does research at Pforzheim University since 1999, but, since 2008, he also teaches regularly in Lüneburg’s MBA program for Sustainability Management. At the Leuphana he now also has audit rights. Junior researchers from Pforzheim will benefit from this, because at the INEC in fact several research projects are performed, but the employees can obtain a doctor’s degree only in cooperation with a university. In the past, employees of Professor Schmidt have already successfully passed doctoral exams at the Universities of Heidelberg, Aachen, Hamburg or Lüneburg.

The Leuphana is known in Germany for its expertise in the field of sustainability; it has its own Department of Sustainability with 25 professorships. 2013 Leuphana received the "TIME-knowledge" award for the integration of sustainability in all areas of academic life. But the Pforzheim University has also expanded its expertise in the past 5 years: Meanwhile 8 professorships are related to sustainability, and there is a bachelor's and a master's degree program with correspondent content; both were built by Professor Schmidt.

From 2004 to 2014 Mario Schmidt was spokesman of the research institutes at the universities of applied sciences in Baden-Württemberg and has recently co-founded the Baden-Württemberg Center for Applied Research (CAR BW). Since 2012 he is member of the Advisory Council for Sustainable Development of the State Government of Baden-Württemberg and advises federal and state ministries on resource efficiency.