70 Nobel laureates and 672 young scientists expected at Lindau

Among the 70 participating laureates are three of last year’s award-winning researchers: Germany’s Stefan Hell as well as the US-Americans Eric Betzig and William E. Moerner. They shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Many of the other laureates are regular guests at Lindau and have participated in the meetings many times. For instance, it will be the 27th meeting already for Swiss microbiologist and geneticist Werner Arber, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine of 1978.

As is the case every five years, the 65th meeting of its kind will bring together scientist of all three natural sciences that are Nobel Prize disciplines. “The scientific landscape of the future will be significantly more interdisciplinarily organised than today because this is the only way we can succeed in dealing with the pending big challenges of mankind. With our interdisciplinary meetings we want to make a contribution to educating the next generation of leading researchers working at the interface of the classical scientific disciplines“, says Wolfgang Lubitz, director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and Vice-President of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

A six-day programme abundant with lectures and panel discussions is in store for the 672 selected young participants. Many consider presenting in one of the master classes a special opportunity. Exchange, networking, and inspiration have been at the core of the Lindau Meetings ever since their establishment in 1951.

The attendance steadily became more international as part of the continuous expansion of the network of academic partner institutions. This year’s participants represent 88 countries, including great research nations like the US, the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, and Germany just as developing countries like Bangladesh or Simbabwe. About 200 academies of science, universities, foundations, and researching enterprises of more than 50 countries played an active part in the course of the selection process for young scientists.

“Compared to previous years the quality of the applications has once more increased significantly,” says Burkhard Fricke, professor emeritus for theoretical physics, member of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and coordinator of the selection process. “Never before have we seen such an interdisciplinary attendance representing such a broad range of fields like in 2015. A PhD candidate who applies physical-technical methods and uses chemical means to tackle medical questions is not at all an isolated case“.

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