Faculty member elected Vice-President of the European Real Estate Society

Faculty Success: 

Dr Gunther Maier from the MU Department of Sustainability, Governance, and Methods was recently elected vice-president of the European Real Estate Society (ERES).

ERES is the largest academic organization in real estate economics in Europe. It engages researchers from almost all European countries and cooperates with sister organizations in other parts of the world (USA, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Pacific Rim). For the next 3 years professor Maier will be one of the leading people in ERES since, according to ERES´s statute, the vice-president becomes the president after a year in the office, and then the past-president a year later. Asked how he feels about the new position professor Maier answers:

“I am proud and excited and also a little bit surprised. My roots are in the regional economics. Only about 15 years ago I moved into real estate economics. Therefore, I feel like a ’newcomer‘ who succeeded to get into this position. But, maybe, it was the combination of regional and real estate economics, that we also use in our teaching at Modul University, that was attractive for the board members.” Professor Maier is aware of the challenges posed to ERES by Covid-19 and the advanced process of digitalization. In order to tackle these challenges professor Maier proposes a two-fold solution which he intends to implement in the next three years: 

“The Covid-19 issues that we are experiencing now are only an intensified version of the longer-term digitalization process. We have to deal with this in a number of different areas: within the field of our internal operations; for dissemination of our services; for connecting to the industry. Therefore, I propose to embrace and implement digitalization by developing digital versions of our main services (conference, industry seminar, education seminar) as well as further develop towards a network of individuals (academics, students, practitioners, etc.) – also in a virtual environment.” ­

Visit MU Department of Sustainability, Governance, and Methods for more information about our Research Focus, Projects, and Study Programs.

More about ERES is available at www.eres.org.