University of Würzburg in new alliance for biodiversity

05/19/2026

The Würzburg-Schweinfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce has launched the "Mainfranken Biodiversity Alliance". The University of Würzburg is a founding member.

Lars Wallstabe (right), researcher at WueLAB, accepted the membership certificate on behalf of the University of Würzburg at the founding event. The certificate was presented by Christian Seynstahl. (Image: Rudi Merkl)

On Monday, 20 April 2026, the Würzburg-Schweinfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) founded the "Mainfranken Biodiversity Alliance". According to the IHK press release, it is "the first regional biodiversity network of its kind in Bavaria." 13 Main-Franconian companies and organisations are taking part, including the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).

The alliance is part of the nationwide project "Unternehmen Biologische Vielfalt" (Companies for Biological Diversity) under the leadership of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

"With the regional 'Mainfranken Biodiversity Alliance', we want to contribute to integrating biodiversity more strongly into business activities," said Dr Christian Seynstahl, IHK Head of Location Policy and Business Development, at the founding event at the end of April. "The members can learn from each other and from external experts and jointly initiate concrete measures on site."

Anja Schlömerkemper, JMU Vice President for Equal Opportunity, Career Planning and Sustainability, expressed similar sentiments: "We welcome the IHK's initiative and hope to gain new impetus for campus design, for example. At the same time, we would like to contribute our knowledge from research and practice and strengthen cooperation with regional companies."

Sustainability and biodiversity at the University of Würzburg

JMU already has a comprehensive package of measures for sustainability and biodiversity. At the centre of this is the holistic sustainability strategy adopted in 2024, in which the University of Würzburg has set itself the goal of significantly advancing the transformation towards a sustainable university by 2028.

Many projects and facilities at JMU are committed to the biodiversity of animals and plants. In addition to numerous research and teaching projects, for example at the Faculty of Biology, in empirical cultural studies or the university's LehrLernGarten, there are currently various transformation experiments at the WueLAB sustainability laboratory: the "L(i)ebenswerter Campus" project promotes biodiversity on the Hubland campus by taking into account the diversity of animal and plant species as well as the needs of students and staff. Similarly, the student transformation experiment "CampusBank" and the Ecology Department's CampusGarden focus on good places to stay, microhabitats and nesting opportunities.