Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Köck has headed the Department of Environmental and Planning Law at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research since 2004 and has held the Chair of Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Leipzig since 2001. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Environmental and Planning Law at the Faculty of Law. His research areas include European and national environmental law (with a focus on water law, nature conservation law, air pollution control law and hazardous substances law) as well as spatial planning law, environmental energy law and agri-environmental law. He also works on the foundations of environmental law and is particularly interested in the functional conditions of the law as well as in questions of effectiveness and the steering capacity of the law. Prof. Köck is co-editor and since 2003 also editor of the Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht (ZUR); he is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal for European Environmental and Planning Law (JEEPL) and belongs to the Management Board of the European Environmental Law Forum (EELF).

At the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Prof. Köck has been working for many years in inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation within the framework of integrated research projects. In this context, fundamental issues of sustainability transformation and, in particular, the transformation of the energy system, the agricultural and food sector, sustainable urban development and the sustainable development of rural areas have recently come into focus.

Prof. Köck has been a member of the German Government’s Council of Environmental Experts (SRU) since 2020; he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the German Society for Agricultural Law and a board member of the German Nature Conservation Law Conference (DNRT).