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Every year, the gathering in the park at Schloss Bellevue is a major highlight for researchers from throughout the world. Normally, these individuals, who are sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation, travel with their families to the Foundation’s Annual Meeting in Berlin where they are the guests of Germany’s federal president.
But everything is different this year due to the corona pandemic and the associated contact restrictions. Many participants have also been unable to begin their fellowships in Germany due to travel restrictions.
In light of this, the Annual Meeting will be held in digital form on June 24 and 25. The more than 1,000 participants will participate and exchange views, information and experiences with one other from their homes. The Annual Meeting is part of the Humboldt Foundation’s #ResearchAcrossBorders campaign which promotes international exchange in times of the pandemic.
Video interviews about the campaign are available here.
The opening ceremony will be streamed via YouTube and will feature addresses by Federal President Frank Walter Steinmeier, the Humboldt Foundation’s President Hans-Christian Pape, Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State in Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, and Wolf-Dieter Lukas, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It will additionally feature science slams and an award ceremony for initiatives developed by Humboldt alumni to promote science communication in Latin America, foster networks for researchers in Cameroon, and support civic involvement in Romania, to name a few examples.
When: 24 June, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. on the Humboldt Foundation's YouTube channel.
Day 2 will revolve around networking and sharing views and information on specialist topics: How will the mobility of scientists and scholars develop in the wake of COVIDCovid-19 and in light of climate change? What solutions are researchers working on to help deal with the crisis and its effects? What is the current situation in the individual researcher's country of origin? What challenges faces science communication?
When: 25 June, from 4:00 to 7:15 p.m. This event will be conducted using special conference software and is not open to the public. Journalists may attend on an off-the-record basis. Please contact us.
Further information
(press release 13/2020)
Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time conducting research in Germany. The Foundation maintains an interdisciplinary network of well over 30,000 Humboldtians in more than 140 countries around the world – including 61 Nobel Prize winners.