EIG Information

Environmental Informatics Group (EIG) is a research institute at Saarland State University for Applied Sciences (HTW), located in Saarbrücken, Germany. The institute has a long history of environmental software applications, nowadays known under the terms Environmental Software Systems (ESS), Environmental Informatics, or short Enviromatics. The first Environmental Informatics Institute was founded at HTW in 1986 and was amongst the first institutes of its kind world-wide. After changes in personnell and strategy, the institute has been re-established under the name EIG in 1995 by Prof. Dr. Reiner Güttler and Prof. Dr. Ralf Denzer, both teaching in the Informatics Department of HTW. In total, we have been involved in over 70 ESS projects over the last 10 years, including projects for international bodies like the European Commission and the United Nations. We conduct applied as well as research projects and aim to foster technology transfer of new and innovative concepts from IT into environmental software application. Because of the complexity of ESS projects and because of the broad range of tools and concepts involved, we have come to the conclusion that ESS projects are best implemented in collaboration with the best available experts in a particular domain or software applications. Therefore, collaboration is more than a need, it is our most important R&D philosophy. For this reason, we maintain a network of researchers and developers which spreads world-wide. We have worked in project collaborations with colleagues and institutions in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Our collaboration network includes national and internationel research institutions, national government bodies, international bodies and industry. We do also strongly support international scientific exchange in the field of Enviromatics by initiating and organizing conferences, workshops, scientific working groups and collaborative project proposals.