Initiated by the Wittenberg-Center the European energy company Vattenfall Europe AG establishes an endowment chair for "Energy Management and Sustainability" at the University of Leipzig. This professorship is embedded in the Competence Center for Sustainability Research in the Central German region at the WCGE. Different partners of business and science are dedicated to the issue of sustainability. The global company DOW Chemical has already founded two university professorships for "Sustainability and Global Ethics" and for "Sustainability and Global Policy" at the HHL - Leipzig Graduate School of Management and at the WCGE.

The Vattenfall Europe endowment chair will cover the field of energy and sustainability, in particular ecological, economical and social aspects including moral dimensions. Such an innovative professorship will clearly differentiate from other existing chairs of energy business or energy technology. The competence for sustainability at the University of Leipzig and in the Central German area is now strengthened by the field of energy. This will be attractive for companies and students from other parts of the world, e.g. from Middle and Eastern Europe.

The signing ceremony of the cooperation contract between the University of Leipzig, Vattenfall Europe AG, Wittenberg Center for Global Ethics and Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft took place on 2nd February 2006 in the presence of Minister Thomas Jurk, Saxony State Minister for Economic Affairs and Labour.