Once every year, around 30-40 Nobel Laureates convene in Lindau to meet the next generation of leading scientists: 600 undergraduates, PhD students, and post-doc researchers from all over the world. The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings foster the exchange among scientists of different generations, cultures, and disciplines.
This year, LCN researcher Margoth Cordova Castro attended the meeting shortly after successfully defending her PhD thesis at King’s College London. Whilst at the meeting, Margoth had the excellent opportunity to talk with Nobel Laureate Serge Haroche who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2012 with David J. Wineland. In the video below, Serge offers advice to young researchers who like himself and Margoth, come from a developing country.
Since their beginnings in 1951, the Lindau Meetings have evolved into a unique international forum for scientific exchange. It was the two Lindau physicians Franz Karl Hein and Gustav Wilhelm Parade who approached Count Lennart Bernadotte af Wisborg of nearby Mainau Island to jointly develop and implement the idea that marked the start of a long and continuing history.
Count Bernadotte – a grandson of King Gustaf V of Sweden – had excellent connections to Stockholm. Especially due to his efforts, seven Nobel Laureates agreed to participate in the first “European Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Medicine” held at Lindau in 1951. This extraordinary meeting was conceived as a European initiative of post-war reconciliation among scientists.
The initial success led to the establishment of periodic meetings of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, dedicated alternately to the Nobel Prize disciplines physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry. Already back in 1953, the decision was made to have undergraduates, PhD students, and post-doc researchers join the dialogue. In 2004, the first of the additional regular Lindau Meetings on Economic Sciences was held.
