The Volkswagen Foundation (in German: VolkswagenStiftung)—a private research foundation not affiliated with the carmaker—has announced grants totaling €10 million ($11 million) in support of six junior professorships across Germany focused on earth science systems.

The junior professorships are intended to make a significant contribution to reorganizing research and teaching at universities to develop an overarching perspective on the interaction of the planet’s physical, chemical, and biological processes, know as the Earth system.

The foundation’s board of trustees approved six of the projects applied for, which range from the investigation of climatic influences on biodiversity and the contribution of silicate weathering to CO₂ emissions to plate tectonics and processes in the Earth’s interior and their influence on the Earth’s atmosphere—compared with similar processes on Venus.

For a complete list of recipients, see the Volkswagen Foundation website.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Laurence Dutton)