Our Trustee Spotlight series highlights the people helping guide the work of the Landscape Research Group and shape the conversations around landscape research internationally. This month we reintroduce Professor Hannes Palang, Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Research, Professor of Human Geography at Tallinn University, and LRG Trustee since 2009.
Based at the Centre for Landscape and Culture in the Estonian Institute of Humanities, Professor Palang has been a prominent voice in European landscape research for more than two decades. His work has explored themes including rural landscapes, landscape change in post-socialist countries, cultural landscapes and landscape governance. Alongside his research, he has played an important role in strengthening links between international research networks and supporting interdisciplinary dialogue within the field.
Professor Palang has also been closely involved with the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape (PECSRL), a long-running international research network founded in 1957 that brings together scholars interested in rural landscape change across Europe.
1. What first inspired you to get involved with the Landscape Research Group and what does being a trustee mean to you?
“I think I first discovered the journal Landscape Research some time in the late 1990s as one publishing somewhat different papers than other landscape journals. And when in 2009 the LRG board invited me to join I did not hesitate.
The reason for that invitation was that I was then the President of PECSRL – a tradition that started in 1957 and still continuing these days – and LRG was keen on establishing better contacts with the other organisation.
What does it mean? A possibility to foster landscape research worldwide.”
Professor Palang’s involvement came at a moment when LRG was strengthening its international relationships and expanding its role within the wider landscape research community. His experience within European research networks helped support these connections and reinforce LRG’s international outlook.
2. What are you most proud of contributing to LRG during your time as a trustee?
“Three things I am most proud of include: encouraging the participation of LRG in European research projects – the HERCULES experience about ten years ago; helping to popularise the research fund when I was the research coordinator for a couple of years; helping to develop the journal as the editor.”
These contributions reflect several of LRG’s core activities: supporting collaborative research, enabling new scholarship through small grants and maintaining a respected academic journal that brings together diverse approaches to landscape research.
Professor Palang has been closely involved in the editorial development of Landscape Research, helping the journal continue its role as an international forum for interdisciplinary landscape scholarship. This month he also marks an important milestone for the journal in his editorial reflection on fifty years of Landscape Research, looking back at how the field and the publication have evolved over time.
3. How do you see the role of LRG evolving in the coming years and what opportunities should landscape research focus on next?
“LRG has unique means of popularising landscape research through its different communication channels – the journal, LEX, social media, etc, and also in bridging research and practice. How the journal evolves is another issue.”
One of the distinctive strengths of the Landscape Research Group has always been its ability to bring together researchers, practitioners and policy thinkers working across disciplines. Through its publications, networks and events, LRG provides spaces where academic research can connect with wider societal questions about landscape change.
4. What excites you most about the future of landscape research – both within LRG and in the wider field?
“Landscape research is not a field famous for discoveries or new theories; it rather benefits from other disciplines and has been able to synthesise these developments.
That said, I look forward to the theoretical development of landscape as a method, as proposed recently by Katherine Burlingame; how landscape becomes more and more integrated into wellbeing and health issues, and what possibilities – and threats – are coming with the increasing use of artificial intelligence.”
As landscape research continues to evolve, these interdisciplinary connections remain central. From cultural geography and planning to ecology, health and digital technologies, the field increasingly draws on multiple perspectives to understand how landscapes are shaped, experienced and governed.
About Professor Hannes Palang, LRG Trustee
Professor Hannes Palang is Professor of Human Geography at the Centre for Landscape and Culture, Estonian Institute of Humanities, Tallinn University, Estonia, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Landscape Research.
His research focuses on cultural landscapes, rural landscape change, landscape governance and the historical transformation of landscapes in Europe, particularly in the Baltic and post-socialist contexts. He has authored and edited numerous books and articles on landscape theory, landscape policy and landscape change, and has been actively involved in international landscape research networks including PECSRL.