It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Hans Hurni, our editor-in-chief from 2000 to 2016, on 27 September 2026.
During his time as Editor-in-Chief, Hans guided the journal with great commitment to the world’s mountain communities and landscapes, seeking to contribute to better mountain futures. Under his guidance, the journal strengthened its focus on engaged science by expanding its scope and introducing sections featuring transformation and target knowledge essential for sustainable development. It was also under his chief editorship that MRD ventured to become fully open access, at a time when this model was still emergent. This enabled us to give free access to our content and reach a large and ever-growing readership of mountain researchers and development specialists worldwide. Convinced that equitable research partnerships and transdisciplinary collaboration are key to sustainable development, Hans and the International Mountain Society broadened MRD’s leadership in 2012 by sharing chief editorship with then Director General of ICIMOD David Molden—an institutional partnership that has flourished ever since.
Having grown up in a Swiss mountain village, Hans’s career as a geographer and soil and land scientist led him to Ethiopia and its Simien Mountains, where he lived and worked for over ten years—an experience that deeply influenced his future work. After returning to Switzerland in the late 1980s, he took on the co-lead of the Group for Development and Environment at the Institute of Geography, University of Bern, and was appointed professor of geography. He later directed the NCCR North-South, a major international development research program, and co-founded the Centre for Development and Environment as a strategic research center of the University of Bern in 2009. As a visionary researcher and dedicated teacher who had a deep empathy for others and was grounded and rooted in the mountain environments he cared for, he was a great inspiration and mentor to numerous colleagues and students both in Bern and in the Global South.
Hans’s values and his great commitment to mountain communities will live on with all of us who had the privilege of knowing and working with him.
MRD Editorial Team, October 2026
