Johanna focuses on climate change impact on cultural heritage, environmental monitoring of cultural property and fostering the green transition by implementing the concept of sustainability for Green Museums and heritage buildings and collections. She is the chair of the EU OMC (open method of coordination) expert group of European Member States Strengthening cultural heritage resilience for climate change and member of the EU Commission expert group Cultural Heritage Forumfounded in 2019. Since June 2022, coordinator of the EIT (European Institute of Technology) programme Culture & Creativity (2022-2029) and since 2020 coordinator of German research project KERES “Protecting cultural heritage from extreme climate events and increasing resilience” as well as the EU project Climate for Culture from 2009-2014 (www.climateforculture.eu). She is partner in the Austrian Academy of Science project Modelling the impact of future climate change on museum pests and fungi (2021- 2024) and in the German project Damage prevention for cultural assets in times of climate change (2022-2024). German delegate for the Council of Europe Strategy "European Cultural Heritage in the 21st century" (2018) and of the UNESCO World Heritage Expert Group for climate change impacts on cultural heritage (2017). Since 2005 scientific representative for Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft at the European Union in Brussels. Co-founder of the German Research Alliance for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in 2008 and of the Fraunhofer Sustainability Network. From 2001 to 2005 National Expert of the Federal Republic of Germany responsible for “Technologies for the Protection of the European Cultural Heritage” in the European Commission in Brussels.
Johanna Leissner is trained as chemist and material scientist. She has been working and managing cultural heritage research for over 20 years
FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT