Europe’s scientific voice needs to be heard

The annual joint conference of ALLEA and Academia Europaea has officially kicked off with opening speeches made by Hungarian Academy president László Lovász and the presidents of the organising academies.


5 September, 2017


“Europe cannot afford to leave behind a single talent,” this was one of the crucial talking points made by Mr. Lovász during his opening speech delivered during the inaugural ceremony of the ALLEA and Academia Europea joint conference on Monday afternoon. The president was referring to the fact that helping talents succeed in the economically less developed segments of the EU, especially the eastern part of Europe is just as important as in the more developed areas. What's more, efforts made in this region could have even more significant social benefits.

Mr. Lovász hailed the event that is being held at the palace of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences which he hopes can help in amplifying the influence of European science and make it more integrated.

Sierd Cloetingh, president of Academia Europaea called the event a unique occasion which is well demonstrated by the fact that of the two participating organisations, ALLEA includes 59 academies across Europe while Academia Europea has more than 3500 members.

“We believe that the European Union is more than a political alliance,” said the president of ALLEA, Günter Stock who stressed the importance of academic freedom during his speech.

Marcel Swart, the president of the Young Academy of Europe shared an interesting piece of information relevant also on a domestic front, namely that the organisation had just exceeded 200 members by admitting Hungarian researcher, Enikő Kubinyi.

The Gold Medal of Academia Europaea was awarded to Helga Nowotny while the ALLEA Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values was presented to Koen Lenaerts. We will be publishing videos of these lectures shortly.

Please click here to see our gallery of the first day.