In a festive ceremony in July 2023 the doctorate was awarded at the campus of Debre Markos University in recognition of his unreserved efforts in academic cooperation with the university in particular in coordinating APPEAR projects.
Reinfried Mansberger is an Assistant Professor of Photogrammetry/Land Administration, at the Institute of Geomatics at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna. His research work is focusing on Land Information, Land Administration Systems, and Photogrammetry. Within the last decades, he has been involved in several projects cooperating with Debre Markos University, focused on developing as well as improving land administration systems and land use monitoring in Ethiopia. The first APPEAR preparatory funding project started in 2014 which finally led to the two academic partnership projects:
- Implementation of Academic Land Administration Education in Ethiopia for Supporting Sustainable Development (EduLAND2), 2016-2020
This Academic Partnership Project was four years project with a grant of 490,000 EUR. With the support of this fund, the institute of land administration has been established at Debre Markos University.
- Implementation of Academic Geomatics Education in Ethiopia for Supporting Sustainable Development (Edu4Geo2), 2023- 2026
This three years Advanced Academic Partnership Project with a grant of 390,000 EUR started in March 2023 and focuses on establishing a master program in geomatics and providing teaching and learning materials. In this project, besides other work packages, state of the art technologies like collecting geo-data by using UAVs and establishing Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) at Debre Markos University main campus are planned.
In addition to this Prof. Mansberger has been successful to acquire funding for other cooperation projects supported by the Cooperation Development Research as well as the EU. He also supervised numerous students from Debre Markos University Due to the strengthened partnership with Debre Markos University, the university has also become the founding member of Africa-UniNet alliances.