A History with Future: The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings 

Starting in 1951, now 20 - 30 Nobel Laureates each year accept the invitation by the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and the Foundation Lindau Nobelpruewinners Meetings at Lake Constance to a unique meeting in Lindau on Lake Constance at the end of June or - for Laureates in Economic Sciences - in August. Some 500 – 700 students and young researchers come from all over the world to listen to the Laureate’s lectures and to engage in discussions with them in an open and informal setting. Representatives from universities and academic institutions select participants based on strict criteria provided by the Council. The meetings provide all participants with exceptional opportunities to take part in valuable scientific and personal contacts, irrespective of and beyond national and cultural boundaries.

Three men - one idea

It was really four: without Alfred Nobel's legacy there would be no prizes, no Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, no Lindau Meetings. Since 1901 the coveted prizes have gone to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" in accordance with the 1895 will of the inventor and businessman. In 1951 two physicians in Lindau had the idea of a con-gress to encourage international scientific exchanges with Nobel Laureates. Prof. Gustav Parade and Dr. Franz Karl Hein found an enthusiastic advocate and patron in Count Lennart Bernadotte af Wisborg (†) from the nearby Island of Mainau. After all, his great-grandfather, the Swedish King Oscar II, had presented the very first Nobel prizes. The first congress, for medical specialists, developed into open-minded encounters between Laureates, young scientists and students, in the additional fields of chemistry and physics. Since 1970, Laureates in economic sciences have sporadically attended. The first Meeting of Winners of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was held in 2004 and is organized every three years since 2008.

Timeless concept

For the past 59 years, the concept of bringing together Nobel Laureates and students/young scientists in a relaxed and informal atmosphere has remained the key denominator for the meetings success. These unique events also attract regularly many representatives of the media to Lindau; and their reports encourage the dialogue between science and society. All contribute to a general understanding of science, a demand of increasing importance to society. Moreover, the Lindau Meetings have attained the function of creating networks of scientific cooperation among all participants worldwide and especially the young also in their own countries.