Kosmos Lecture at the Humboldt Foundation’s late summer reception

Around 250 international guests from academia, politics and business as well as Humboldtians currently conducting research in Germany will meet at the late summer reception being held at the Villa Elisabeth in Berlin by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The reception offers a space for sharing personal experiences and is aimed at providing impetus for new research collaboration.

Modelled after the Kosmos lectures Alexander von Humboldt gave in Berlin nearly 200 years ago to inform the public about the latest scientific findings, today’s Humboldt Foundation hosts a lecture on a topical subject every year on a date close to Humboldt’s birthday. On 16 September, Vânia Zuin Zeidler, creative lead of this year’s class of the Humboldt Residency Programme, will give the Kosmos Lecture “Guaranteeing the Right to Food and the Right Food For a Better World”. Her lecture will present initial results of the Humboldt Residency Programme “The Future of Food” where the participants discuss the challenges facing global food production and nutrition.

Vânia Zuin Zeidler is a Professor of Sustainable Chemistry of Renewable Organic Resources at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Pro-Dean of Gender and Diversity, and coordinator of the Master’s degree programme “Sustainability Science: Resources, Materials and Chemistry”. Her research focuses on the development of analytical methods for determining renewable and bioactive high-value organic substances extracted from agro-industrial residues. She is the founding director of the Field & Food Tech Hub (Universidad Federal de São Carlos, Brazil), a platform for green technologies and sustainability. 

The Kosmos Lecture will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Vânia Zuin Zeidler along with the science journalist Carl Smith and Kira Vinke, head of the Center for Climate and Foreign Policy of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Financed by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, the Humboldt Residency Programme offers Humboldtians and other researchers together with actors from the arts, the media and civil society the opportunity to work together on a topic that changes every year. The programme’s six-week residency in Brandenburg and Berlin fosters an intensive interdisciplinary sharing of views and information and promotes dialogue with the public. 

Journalists are welcome to attend
Please register for the event by 15 September 2025 by sending an e-mail to presse@avh.de, together with a copy of your valid press card. 
Date: Tuesday, 16 September 2025, 6 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.) 
Venue: Villa Elisabeth, Invalidenstraße 3, 10115 Berlin

Programme

• Welcome address
  Robert Schlögl, President of the Humboldt Foundation 
  Bernhard Kotsch, State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office
• Kosmos Lecture “Guaranteeing the Right to Food and the Right Food for a Better World”
  Vânia Zuin Zeidler, Professor of Sustainable Chemistry of Renewable Organic Resources, Leuphana University Lüneburg, and creative lead of the 2025 Humboldt Residency Programme
  Simultaneous interpretation (into German) will be offered. 
• Panel discussion 
  Vânia Zuin Zeidler
  Kira Vinke, head of the Center for Climate and Foreign Policy, German Council on Foreign Relations
  Carl Smith, science journalist (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and participant in the 2025 Residency Programme
• Reception starts 7:30 p.m. 

Press contact on location: Lisa Purzitza, +49 176 80332388

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 63 Nobel Prize winners.