Humboldt Academia in Society Summit

The Humboldt Academia in Society Summit seeks to generate new ideas on current topics and challenges in civil society from within science.

Research and Development
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Contact

Inka Löck
Head of Division
Berlin Office of the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Email: inka.loeck[at]avh.de
Phone.: +49 30 204 547 17

Every year, outstanding members of the worldwide Humboldt Network will get together with representatives of the political sphere, civil society, business and the media to discuss a different topic.

In this way, the Humboldt Foundation will be fulfilling its role as an internationally oriented science organisation, contributing to science’s social responsibility across the world and resolutely considering international perspectives and discourse.

Aimee van Wynsberghe (University of Bonn), Vincent C. Müller (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Claire Monteleoni (University of Colorado Boulder), Holger Hendrik Hoos (RWTH Aachen), Minne Atairu (Columbia University), Hans-Christian Pape (Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung), Stuart Russell (University of California Berkeley), Damini Satija (Amnesty International), Jens Brandenburg (Federal Ministry of Education and Research), Alexandra Geese (European Parliament), Ulrich Paquet (The Deep Learning Indaba), Aldo Faisal (Imperial College London), Kate Crawford (USC Annenberg), Felix Creutzig (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change)

Artificial intelligence is changing the world. Its influence permeates every aspect of our daily lives, giving rise to high hopes but also vast uncertainties.

AI has already fundamentally changed science and research. It has driven top-flight research that brings tangible benefits to society, from medical imaging through vaccine development to climate modelling. AI is an indispensable tool in tackling the major global issues of our time. But its development, implementation and integration also entail ethical, social and legal challenges. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation will continue to play its part in the worldwide efforts to promote AI research, sponsoring outstanding researchers and encouraging them to recruit inspired young talents. The Foundation’s approach to AI is holistic: we believe that collaboration between its various subdisciplines, from technology to ethics and law, is necessary to ensure that AI becomes an equitable resource for all of humankind.

On that note, the Humboldt Academia in Society Summit aims to examine AI research from different angles in order to better understand how AI can be used to benefit people all over the world, while also carefully considering its unexpected pitfalls.

How will we travel, transport goods and get around in cities and rural areas more sustainably in the future? How do new mobility technologies affect society? Around 150 participants from the science community, society and the political sector discussed this issue on 13 and 14 September at the international virtual 2021 Humboldt New Mobility Conference hosted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Video of the conference opening

The Humboldt Academia in Society Summit is the successor to the Forum for the Internationalisation of Science and Humanities. From 2008 to 2019, the Forum was an annual event at which the Humboldt Foundation’s International Advisory Board created an opportunity to discuss current research policy topics.