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The care and development of cultural heritage is a high-ranking social concern. Historical writings, architectural monuments steeped in history or fostering of traditions are not the only types of cultural heritage, especially landscapes also belong to this.
Cultural landscapes embody anthropogenic utilization intentions (values and targets) and utilization of the natural environment (technology), which are visible e.g., in regionally typical forms of housing schemes or production areas. Cultural landscapes are dynamic or “transitory” (Lucius Burkhard) i.e., they are subject to a permanent change of their aesthetic appearance and ecological quality because they not only change values and attitudes but also technical possibilities and socio-cultural demands.
 
Cultural landscapes, as a time memory, conserve the respective traces of usage of various epochs and are, as such, not only museum documents, but pedagogical impulses to reflect about the current and future way we deal with nature and landscape;

As in the case of many „cultural layers of time”, today’s cultural landscape is multifunctional i.e., it does not only serve as a source of agricultural and forestry production, but it also preserves biodiversity, ensures the performance and functionality of the ecosystem and humans, as a versatile and varied recreational area;

As rooms of the future, they inspire (with knowledge of history and against the background of generation justice) responsible landscape development.

Cultural landscapes are in the area of tension between retrospective care and prospective development. The main focus of research therefore dedicates itself to cultural historical landscape analysis, above all with the intention of generating insights for innovative concepts for sustainable cultural landscape development. This not only serves to fulfill the brief of protection and development in the Federal Nature Conservation Act, but also provides a contribution for the sustainable development of rural space. The Federal Regional Planning Act supports the preservation of the established cultural landscape and the federal state of Nordrhein-Westfalen assigns special importance to cultural landscape development in its state regional development plan. Moreover, relevance and timeliness of research concerning cultural landscape can be seen clearly in this, as historical cultural landscapes are deemed as a resource requiring protection under the Environmental Impact Assessment Law (UVP) and with the European Landscape Convention and the UNESCO World Heritage List, international requirements and obligations are defined
While the focus of active and successful research, during the first research decade since 1993, inspired many project ideas with its urgency of substance-ensuring maintenance of cultural landscapes, which was plausible as a result of the ongoing loss and the far-reaching loss of quality of cultural landscapes and cultural landscape elements respectively, today’s research and development approach to sustainable development of rural zones provides a supplement to this scope of duties.