Tag: Lindau Meetings

  • Meet Nobel Laureates

    Up to 43 Nobel Laureates and about 600 young researchers from all over the world will attend this year Lindau Meetings. Science journalists have happy opportunity to attend this outstanding event.
    EUSJA has got an announcement that journalists who would like to cover the 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this year may apply for travel grants. The Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings will compensate travel costs up to a certain amount and accommodation for four nights. Journalists may apply directly to Gero von der Stein, Head of Communications
    Phone + 49 (0) 8382 27731 26
    Fax + 49 (0) 8382 27731 13
    gero.vonderstein@lindau-nobel.org

  • Ein Sommer voll Wissenschaft

    By Senne Starckx,

    Belgian science journalist

    28.08.2015 Heidelberg, Germany, 3rd Heidelberg Laureate Forum 3. Heidelberger Laureaten Forum Picture/Credit: Christian Flemming/HLF

    Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, summer doesn’t equal with relaxing on the beach or hiking in the mountains.

    Since a couple of years I always try to have some blank space in my agenda in the last week of June and the first week of July. That’s because I know this is the time of the year for my annual ‘retreat’: one week amongst the brightest and most inspiring minds of the planet, amidst the beautiful surroundings of little charming Lindau and the magnificent Bodensee.

    I don’t lie when I’m saying that by now I’ve become a regular of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The last edition, which was held from 28 June until 3 July, was already the fifth one I participated in. The highlight of my stay – which again was bathed in the summer heat of this sunny part of Germany – was a long interview with François Englert, the Belgian physicist who won the Nobelprize in 2013 for his discovery of the Higgs boson. This year the Meeting was dedicated to the ‘Interdisciplinary’ sciences – a clever excuse of the organization to choose and invite the most interesting people from all scientific areas. For a science reporter this is a goldmine: as interdisciplinary means that everything is connected with everything, it’s much easier to find interesting stories that are no too detailed, specific or complex for a lay public.

    Although I have been in Lindau several times, I’m always struck by the organizational perfection of conferences like the Nobel Meeting. Wherever it’s a plenary lecture, an arranged interview or a social event, everything really breaths German Gründlichkeit. And no to forget tradition. While the economic crisis has cut deeply in many institution’s budgets, removing conferences’ garnishing like good food, enjoyable gatherings and entertaining and inspiring side events, this is not true in Germany. The organizers of the Lindau Meeting seem to live in another universe, where tradition and continuity with the past are more important than the hype of today.

    Last August, I went to Germany again, for a similar meeting: the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, which took place in Heidelberg from 22 until 29 August. The Forum is similar to Lindau because also here the brightest minds in a specific field of study are invited: mathematics and computer science – in which there are no Nobel Prizes to win. The laureates that are invited all have won the Fields Medal, the Abel Prize (mathematics) or the Nevanlinna Prize (computer science). Another difference with Lindau is that this event is rather young: the last Forum was only the 3rd edition.

    One of the absolute stars of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum – of all three editions – is Vinton Cerf, vice-president of Google and nicknamed ‘the chief evangelist of the internet’. It’s really inspiring to hear him speak, not only about the past – Cerf was one of the fathers of the internet – but especially about the future. Many hot potatoes, like privacy, net neutrality, big data and artificial intelligence. For reporters covering these ‘new tech’ subjects, the Forum is a must to attend.

    Picture/Credit: Christian Flemming/HLF

     

  • EUSJA again in Lindau


    Lindau_discussion_2013

    Shall I start with the names? Peter Agre, Werner Arber, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Bruce Beutler, J. Michael Bishop, Elizabeth Blackburn, Aaron Ciechanover, Steven Chu, Johann Deisenhofer, Sir Martin J. Evans, Edmond Fischer, Walter Gilbert, Harald zur Hausen, Jules Hoffmann, Robert Huber, Sir R. Timothy Hunt, Brian Kobilka, Jean-Marie Lehn, Hartmut Michel, Ferid Murad, Erwin Neher, Richard Roberts, Bert Sakmann, Randy Schekman, Hamilton Smith, Oliver Smithies, Thomas Steitz, Roger Y. Tsien, John Walker, Arieh Warshel, Torsten Wiesel, Kurt Wüthrich, Ada Yonath, Rolf Martin Zinkernagel…

    More than 30 Nobel Laureates are expected to attend Lindau Meetings this year from 28 June to 4 July. Science journalists will have a possibility to join the meeting thanks the grants that has been agreed with EUSJA.

    The collaboration of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and EUSJA became a good tradition. Every year the group of science journalists may take part in an inspiring week of exchange and networking, numerous lectures, panels, discussion sessions, master classes… Journalists have the opportunity to meet famous scientists, ask questions, interview them.  This year the meeting will be dedicated to medicine and physiology. About 600 young researchers from more than 80 countries  will get together in Lindau.

    Science journalists interested to attend the meeting may apply for the grants by April 14 (the deadline). The conditions and the address for the applications have been sent to national associations of EUSJA. Please ask your national delegate.

    About The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
    Since 1951, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings have been bringing together the most esteemed scientists of their times with outstanding young scientists from all over the world. The meetings focus alternately on physiology/medicine, physics, chemistry, and economic sciences.
    Every summer around 30 Nobel Laureates and approximately 600 young scientists from about 80 countries meet in the Southern German town of Lindau for one week – to learn from each other, to exchange knowledge, ideas, and experience, to share their enthusiasm for science, and to make valuable new contacts. The young scientists have to pass a multi-step international selection process in order to get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in a Lindau Meeting. They stand at the beginning of their careers and strive for excellence in their fields.

    In Lindau, lectures, discussion sessions, panels, and science master classes account for the major part of every meeting programme. But the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings deliberately offer an opportunity for inspiration and reflections, for personal encounters and intense talks – in that they distinguish themselves from common scientific conferences. Alongside cutting-edge research, universally important issues like sustainability or the responsibility of scientists in and for the society are of utmost significance for the meetings.
    The meetings are organised jointly by the council founded in 1954 and the foundation established in 2000. However, they originate from an initiative of the two Lindau physicians Franz Karl Hein and Gustav Wilhelm Parade, and Count Lennart Bernadotte, a member of the Swedish royal family residing on Mainau Island in Lake Constance. The first meeting in 1951 – a congress of physicians that was attended by seven Nobel Laureates from Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, and Germany – provided a significant impulse to the European scientific dialogue after World War II. Ever since, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings have evolved into an international forum for scientific debate on issues of global importance, gaining many partners and supporters around the world.

    The leitmotif  “Educate. Inspire. Connect.” not only applies to the meetings, it also determines the societal commitment of the organisers. Numerous projects convey the fascination of science and research, provide food for thought, and stimulate public debates.

    Homepage:  www.lindau-nobel.org
    Mediatheque:  mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org