Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
Their aim is to bring together Nobel laureates and young scientists to foster scientific exchange between different generations, cultures and disciplines.
Every Lindau Meeting consists of a multitude of scientific sessions like plenary lectures and panel discussions as well as a variety of networking and social events.
The meetings are not centered on the presentation of research results, but instead, their main goals are the exchange of ideas and the discussion of topics globally relevant to all scientists.
They convinced Count Lennart Bernadotte af Wisborg, a member of the Swedish royal family and proprietor of nearby Mainau Island, to call upon his good connections to Sweden's Nobel Committee to support the undertaking.
The first meeting, subsequently held in 1951, was dedicated to the fields of medicine and physiology and was attended by seven Nobel laureates, among them Adolf Butenandt and Hans von Euler-Chelpin.
After the success of the initial meeting, the scientific scope was broadened to include the other two natural science Nobel Prize disciplines chemistry and physics.
Shortly before the turn of the millennium, the future of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings was endangered due to financial uncertainties.
Two main goals of Countess Sonja Bernadotte's aegis were the further internationalisation of the meetings and to improve its public image, both domestically and internationally.
She continued her mother's course and worked on establishing further cooperation with research institutions around the world but also introduced educational aspects for society in general to the Lindau Meetings.
The meetings focus alternately on physiology and medicine, physics, and chemistry – the three natural science Nobel Prize disciplines.
Meetings dedicated to a single discipline are usually attended by about 30–40 Nobel laureates and 500–600 young scientists representing around 80 different countries.
The application is open to undergraduates, PhD students and post-doc researchers under the age of 35 who are at the top of their class and do not hold a permanent position yet.
[9] Over the years many noteworthy guests of honour have visited the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings: Among them former German Presidents Roman Herzog, Johannes Rau, Horst Köhler and Christian Wulff.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel held the opening speech at the Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences 2014 and 2017 it was the then president of the ECB Mario Draghi.
Sixty years later, at the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in the summer of 2015, a second Mainau Declaration was issued, this time making a statement on the need to combat climate change.
This idea of an annual camp was co-proposed by Yuan Tseh Lee and Masatoshi Koshiba at the 2005 Nobel Laureate Meetings at Lindau.
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings are also actively engaging in outreach projects and science communication based on their ‘Mission Education’ leitmotif.
