The research topics of the History of Open Space Planning department are diverse and range from social science questions concerning the recent history of landscape architecture and nature conservation to investigations on the history of cultural landscapes and garden monument preservation research projects. The research is always carried out in cooperation with other institutes of the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape, institutes of other faculties, universities in Germany and abroad as well as professional associations and institutions. Topics of the past years were, for example, "The History of the Former Israelite Horticultural School Ahlem" (in cooperation with colleagues of the Historical Seminar of the Leibniz University Hannover and the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning of the Technion in Haifa), "Loss of use of Historical Gardens" (in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Wulf Tessin, Institute for Open Space Development), "On the History of Landscape Architecture in the German Democratic Republic," "The Cistercian Monastery Waldsassen, its Gardens and Cultural Landscape - a Garden Monument Preservation Study" (in collaboration with Prof. Günter Nagel), and "Garden Monument Preservation as a Field of Work for Freelance Landscape Architects in the Federal Republic of Germany, Using the Example of the Rose and Gustav Wörner Office." Research funding institutions in recent years have included the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, the VolkswagenStiftung, and the Stiftung Niedersachsen.
Some of the research projects, in which the Department of History of Open Space Planning is significantly involved, are situated at the Center for Garden Art and Landscape Architecture (CGL) of the Leibniz University of Hannover and can be accessed via the CGL website.
The Department of the History of Open Space Planning is also committed to the promotion of young academics by co-organizing or organizing 'Garden History Research Colloquia' in cooperation with other universities. These colloquia serve to provide an international network for young scholars who are doing their doctorates on topics related to garden history/garden monument preservation. Since the launch of the colloquia in the 1990s at the University of Hannover, further events have been held at the Technical University of Berlin, among other universities.
The 9th colloquium in the series was held in Hannover from March 15-17, 2012; the organizers were the Department of History of Open Space Planning and the CGL, Leibniz University of Hannover, in cooperation with the Department of Historic Preservation, TU Berlin, and the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture, TU Munich. The colloquium was sponsored by the Herbert Heise Foundation for Garden Art and Landscape Culture.
