The 25 winners of this year’s Green Talents Competition have been selected to attend the premiere of a Virtual Science Forum for talented junior researchers in the field of sustainability science, which starts today; responsible for the organisation of the competition is the DLR Project Management Agency. The winners are engaged in topics ranging from climate change to energy systems. For the first time ever, the winners include researchers from Benin, Japan and Malawi. For more details, the awardees’ individual research profiles can be accessed exclusively on the Green Talents website.
At the end of the Virtual Science Forum, the 25 Green Talents will be honoured by Dr Michael Meister, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, during a virtual award ceremony on Monday, 26 October 2020, from 10.00 to 11.30 a.m. (CET). You are cordially invited to virtually attend the ceremony and to interview the awardees subsequently via video call.
The Green Talents programme is conducted under the patronage of the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Anja Karliczek. The award has been honouring talented researchers since 2009 and provides young scientists with a platform for sharing their views on green concepts to make our world a better place. This year, a high-ranking jury of German experts selected 25 up-and-coming researchers among 589 applicants from 87 countries as the winners. Each award comprises one of the coveted tickets to the “Green Talents International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development”.
Due to the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Green Talents Science Forum will for the first time take place in a fully online format as a Virtual Science Forum. It will take the 25 Green Talents on an exciting virtual journey where they can explore Germany’s sustainability research landscape, network with German researchers and get to know their fellow award winners. In the coming days, the awardees will be remotely visiting German research institutions, universities and organisations concerned with sustainability science, and discussing their projects with local experts. Among the research institutions participating in this year’s programme are the University of Hamburg, my Boo (a company that builds bamboo bikes), the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT Rostock), the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
By having the chance to establish contacts with the German science community and exchange exciting ideas with some of its key innovators, the awardees will be able to lay the foundations for future cooperation. These opportunities are accompanied by an invitation to come to Germany in 2021 for a fully funded research stay at an institution of their choice.
