Research Collaborations in Transition

Approximately 300 researchers from all disciplines will gather at the Humboldt Foundation’s colloquium in Rome from 21 to 23 September. The attendees from Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland will jointly discuss current challenges facing science and international exchange. Topics of discussion will include opportunities for junior researchers in the countries bordering the Alps, changes in scientific collaboration in a time of growing digitalisation and global crises such as war in Europe, climate change, the energy crisis, and threats to academic freedom.

The conference will bring Humboldtians together and give young researchers as well the opportunity to establish contacts within the Humboldt Network and with potential collaboration partners in Germany. The Humboldt Network in Italy, Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland presently has more than 1,500 members.
Every year, the Humboldt Foundation organises up to two major colloquia abroad to which all the alumni from the respective country or region are invited. The colloquium in Rome is being supported by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Academic Exchange Service and the Goethe Institute. The colloquium will be held at Sapienza University of Rome and the Hotel Crowne Plaza in Rome. 

Journalists are welcome to attend! We will be glad to arrange interviews. To attend, please register by e-mail to presse[at]avh.de.
Press contact on location: Kristina Güroff, Tel. +49 151 14015796

The colloquium will be opened on 21 September in the auditorium of the Sapienza University of Rome by

• Anna Maria Bernini, Minister of University and Research, Italy (tbc),
• Antonella Polimeni, Rector of Sapienza University of Rome, 
• Robert Schlögl, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 
• Andreas Krüger, Head of the Cultural and Scientific Section of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Rome,
• Giacomo de Angelis, President of the Humboldt Alumni Association of Italy.

The evening’s speakers will be Donatella della Porta, Professor of Political Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore and Director of the Centre on Social Movement Studies in Florence, and the classical philologist Glenn W. Most, since 2020 professor emeritus at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, Director of the Archaeological Park in Pompeii will hold the dinner speech on the evening of 22 September. His research career in Italy began in 2011 with a research fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation to conduct research at the University of Basilicata in Matera.

(Press release 26/2023)

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.