Our focus is on addressing present and future challenges with design. We believe it is essential to base design interventions on sound research into the nature of these challenges. Research themes include regional, landscape and urban design, as well as theory and methodology of the relationship between design and research. Our core competence is recognising and analysing the various scales of complexity and dynamics in landscape systems and proposing meaningful and imaginative design solutions. The Landscape Architecture Group is very international in terms of staff culture, student body, and theoretical and empirical work. We are embedded in the department of Environmental Sciences of Wageningen University & Research. The department provides fundamental research and academic education on our living environment: nature, landscape, land usage, adaptation to climate change, water and ocean management, and the various competing claims on space.