Institute of Earth Sciences Utrecht (IVAU)

Research at the Department of Earth Sciences is organized through the Institute of Earth Sciences Utrecht (IVAU, or Instituut voor Aardwetenschappen Utrecht). The institute addresses the dynamics of System Earth at all temporal and spatial scales. Thus, research at IVAU encompasses a broad field of the Earth sciences, in particular the core disciplines of geochemistry, geology, geophysics, biogeology and hydrogeology.

Mission

IVAU’s mission is to advance our understanding, description, and prediction of processes that govern evolution and functioning of the Earth, from the molecular to the planetary system scale. Through the core disciplines represented within IVAU (above) IVAU scientists aim to integrate the principles and methods of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and computational sciences, to reconstruct, interpret and predict the structure and interactive dynamical behaviour of the solid Earth, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere, on time scales ranging from seconds to billions of years.
IVAU’s ambition is to further develop itself as an international centre of excellence in scientific research and research training.

Over 160 researchers (including PhD students) are further organised within several expert groups. Through these, the institute is strongly involved in the various Master's Degree Programmes in Earth sciences.