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President's page#

Sierd Cloetingh

Letter to AE and YAE members and guests from the President Sierd Cloetingh#

January 2019#

Dear AE member, member of the Young Academy and guest readers,#

To all members, a healthy and a productive 2019 and for those who were not able to come to the 30th anniversary conference in Barcelona in November, please put the 2019 conference dates into your diaries now: October 23-25th. The event will again take place in Barcelona.

In fact, already on February 5th, our member Professor Laszlo Lovasz MAE - Mathematics (the current President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) will be presented with the first ever AE-Barcelona city HYPATIA prize, at a dedicated ceremony to be hosted by the Mayor of Barcelona. The prize forms a part of the city strategy to be a recognised centre of international science excellence. This prize has been established and linked to the AE, following extensive negotiation by our Hub Director Ricard Guerrero and our local members. The prize is for significant scholarly achievement over a long and sustained period, and carries with it a substantial monetary element and so contributes substantially to the further development of the AE’s international profile.

The members who attended our November AGM elected two new key officers of the Academia who are also members of the Board of Trustees: Genoveva Marti MAE, Barcelona (Chair of our Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies section) was elected as Vice President, whilst Professor Veljko Milutinovic MAE, Belgrade (Informatics), was elected as our Treasurer. He will soon be in contact with you, firstly to ask for your 2019 annual member payments and subsequently, to seek your inputs into a new finance and sponsorship development plan.

I am also pleased to report that the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) have also elected Mangala Srinivas as their new Chair for 2019.

Our Vice President Ole Petersen MAE, will remain on the Board as deputy treasurer and as Academic Director of the Cardiff Hub and lynchpin of our successful involvement in the SAPEA consortium.

On a personal note: late in 2018, I took up the baton of the rotating Chair of the SAPEA Board for 2019.

This year, 2019, we will see some major developments here in the AE.

Firstly, our draft five-year strategic plan will be put out to member consultation in the next few weeks.

Secondly, the call for nominations for candidates for election to membership is now open. This year we have compressed the cycle, to allow us to invite the 2019 cohort of new members to come to Barcelona in October to be welcomed. So all members should act now and nominate suitable candidates. Remember that you can nominate candidates for any section – not just your own. The Board this year wish to especially encourage members to also nominate candidates from ‘less research intensive’ countries across Europe and the Classes have specific instructions to look carefully at all candidates’ achievements, especially taking into account the overall conditions under which they are working and the opportunities available to scholars in diverse countries. The closing date for electronic submission of candidates is 31 March. There is no limit to the number of candidates that any individual member can nominate, or support - but please do make an effort to nominate at least one. Full information.

Please also remember that AE members can nominate young researchers for election to the Young Academy of Europe (via their website).

Thirdly, a call will be published inviting nomination of candidates for the next Presidency of the Academia Europaea (from 2020 onwards). Full details of the criteria and process will be made available to members in due course.

Fourthly, I am pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the establishing of a fifth Academia Europaea Regional Knowledge Hub, to be based at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in Georgia. The Hub has the full support of the University (our member - Rector George Sharvashidze MAE) and the government of the republic. A launch event is currently planned for late April and a life sciences symposium (organised by Alex Verkhratsky MAE, Chair of Class C) is planned for September.

Fifthly, I want to congratulate Professor Aleida Assmann MAE (Comparative Literature – University of Konstanz) MAE and Professor Sonia Livingstone MAE (Media and Communications – London School of Economics) – who have been selected to receive an Erasmus Medal of the Academia Europaea for their sustained contributions to their fields. Their awards will be presented at the 2019 annual conference in October in Barcelona, where they will each deliver an Erasmus lecture as part of the programme.

Finally, a general reminder to all members: please look at the http://www.ae-info.org website, where all of our upcoming events are announced. Please remember that all AE members can also access for free the online issues of The European Review. Simply log in into the member pages via your account. You can also find links to our Regional Knowledge Hubs and their programmes of events and a lot of other AE related information, including your own personal profile pages, which you can update and expand as you wish.

Here are just a few or the expanding list of 2019 events:

  • February, Paris: APPEC-Geo.8- workshop on Observatory Synergies for Astroparticle Physics and Geoscience.
  • April,Budapest: "Consensus Workshop on Definitions in Translational Medicine".
  • April: Launch programme for the Tbilisi Hub.
  • May: Stockholm Wenner Gren-Academia Europaea HERCULES group symposium: “Mind the Gap: Bridging Secondary and Higher Education”.
  • June, Krakow: Annual RNA Society Meeting, RNA 2019.
  • June, Oslo: 25th International Conference on Types for Proofs and Programs.
  • October, Barcelona: 31st annual conference of the Academia Europaea.
  • November, Hangzhou, PRC: “The Ethico-Political Turn in Literary Studies: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives”.

Sierd Cloetingh
Utrecht, January 2019

Past newsletters and statements#



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