Every year, the small island of Lindau on Lake Constance in Bavaria, Germany becomes the home of the world鈥檚 largest gathering meeting of Nobel Laureates. The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Series has been taking place since 1951 when two local physicists convinced Count Lennart Bernadotte af Wisborg who was a member of the Swedish Royal Family to start the initiative. The meetings have since evolved to host about 600 young scientists from across the globe (despite the 60,000 applicant hopefuls that apply every year). The meeting topics cycle through the topics of physiology and medicine, physics, and chemistry together with an Interdisciplinary theme every five years and Economic Sciences every three years.
The meetings themselves are also complemented by talks by world leaders such as Bill Gates who gave the opening speech in 2011 and Angela Merkel who opened in 2014. Other high-profile attendees include Vint Cerf (Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist) who co-invented of TCP/IP on which the internet is built and Martin Hellman who shared the Turing Award in 2015 for his contributions to cryptography. The week-long event includes numerous opportunities for attendees to interact with Nobel Laureates in their field as well as a long series of talks, panel discussions, outside activities as well as master classes. This is an exceptional opportunity for future leaders in research or industry to take part in this unique event.
The University of Malta has a long history of taking part in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Series with representatives taking part almost every year. In addition to the nominee taking part in the meeting, participants also bring back important experiences and knowledge that filters into the local research scene. Participants also form part of a life-long alumni network of researchers that spans the globe. Some alumni have also secured visits by Nobel Laureates to Malta as well as other important outcomes.
The University recently launched a dedicated portal to make these positive outcomes more visible and to centralise all relevant information and activity related to the Lindau meetings, which can be found online.
Another important development is the establishment of the Selection Committee for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings which is responsible for nominating participants from the University鈥檚 selection process and in boosting our engagement with the Lindau meetings initiative.
Applications for the nomination of a participant for the 2022 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Chemistry is currently open through this link.
All eligible applications are welcome, and any queries can be addressed via email. This is an exceptional opportunity for aspiring leaders of tomorrow.
