The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
At the end of June Nobel Prize winners and leading young scientists will once again meet in Lindau on Lake Constance.
For Florian Buhr, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Goethe University Frankfurt, it was a crucial experience. Seven years ago, at the very beginning of his scientific work, a scholarship enabled him to attend a Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Even today, just as he is about to receive his doctorate, he still enthuses about the atmosphere and the discussions he had with Nobel laureates at the event. He was particularly impressed by the late Harold Kroto, a British chemist with German roots. “In Lindau the overarching theme is always also important, the worldview that drives us as scientists, how we approach education and learning and what characterizes a person so that they achieve something extraordinary, such as a Nobel laureate – that is what so impressed me,” says Buhr. Kroto, a theatre fan even as a schoolboy, captivated everyone with his humorous manner, Buhr recalls. Today, the student enjoys entering science slams with his specialist knowledge.
31 Nobel laureates and over 400 young scientists
Ever since 1951, Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics and medicine have been meeting brilliant young scientists from all over the world annually in Lindau. The aim of the event is to enable and promote an intercultural and intergenerational exchange of knowledge and experiences and to foster networking. Lectures, panel discussions and master classes make up most of the meetings’ programme. The meetings were originally instigated by Lindau-based doctors Franz Karl Hein and Gustav Parade as well as by Count Lennart Bernadotte, a member of the Swedish royal family and the owner of the island of Mainau. The first meeting in 1951 was an important stimulus encouraging links to be re-forged between scientists after the Second World War. Since then, under the motto “Mission Education” the Lindau Meetings have evolved into an internationally renowned forum for scientific debate on topics of global significance. In 2016, physics is the meeting’s central focus. Thirty-one Nobel laureates and more than 400 young scientists from 80 countries are expected to attend.
66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings from 26 June to 1 July 2016
