HLF Review 2016

Résumé
It will go on
Beate Spiegel
Chairperson of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation
(HLFF) and Managing Director of the Klaus
Tschira Stiftung (KTS)
“We have reached the end of this year’s Heidelberg
Laureate Forum (HLF); one week has
passed very quickly, but I hope that each minute
was worth your time, that there were many impressions,
ideas, insights and new contacts you
can take home.
It has become a tradition – if such a word makes
sense considering the short history of HLF – to
use the farewell address as a platform for talking
about the future of our Forum.
As some of you may know, the decision of the
Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS) to provide the financial
support needed for HLF was originally limited
to a “trial period” of five years. Since the
Forum has been extremely well received by the
participating laureates, the young researchers
and the guests from all over the world, I had
the pleasure of announcing in my last year’s
farewell address that the KTS had lifted that
constraint and will continue to provide funding.
After that we talked to the award-granting
organizations, the Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM), the International Mathematical
Union (IMU), and the Norwegian Academy
of Science and Letters (DNVA), and they all were
in favor of converting the HLF from an experiment
to a permanent institution. Therefore, I
would like to emphasize that the Heidelberg
Laureate Forum in 2017 will not be the last one.
The HLF will be continued as long as the open,
unfettered scientific exchange between laureates
and young researchers is a useful means
for advancing science – which we are convinced
will be the case for a long time.
For reasons that primarily have to do with local
logistic constraints we decided to run the HLF
in the last complete week of September in each
year. To make the specification complete: We
consider Sunday the first day of the week and
Saturday the last. Our website gives you a list
of the HLF dates from next year to 2022 – but
again: There will be Forums beyond 2022.
The fact that the decision of continuing this activity
could be made so early and so easily is
primarily due to the laureates and the young
researchers who created and maintain the spirit
that makes the HLF so unique. I thank you for
your commitment, your time, your enthusiasm
and for the many ways in which you support us.
It is both a pleasure and a privilege working for
such a great community. This is your event, or –
put slightly differently – you are HLF.
Thanks are, of course, also due to the many
other supporters and partners who help in preparing
and running the Forum. And, last but not
least, there is our dedicated and highly professional
team with their many helpers who assist
you in whatever may be needed, but also work
in the background on the many things that need
to be attended to.”
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