ALLEA General Assembly elects new member academies and re-elects ALLEA Board for the next term in office

On the occasion of the 15th ALLEA General Assembly, held on the premises of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo, on 25 April 2014 the delegates of the ALLEA member academies decided to admit four further full members and one associate member to the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities. Furthermore, in the course of ALLEA´s annual meeting, all re-eligible members of the ALLEA Board were re-elected and one new member was elected for the period 2014-16. The meeting was preceded by a scientific symposium and a festive event celebrating ALLEA´s 20th anniversary.

Participants of the annual ALLEA business meeting 2014 in Oslo

Participants of the annual ALLEA business meeting 2014 in Oslo

Since 25 April 2014 the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities counts 58 full members. On the recommendation of the ALLEA Board, the General Assembly voted for the admission of four academies that had applied for membership in ALLEA:  The Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona (Spain), The Institute for Catalan Studies (Spain), The Academy of Sciences of Turin (Italy) and The Venetian Institute for Sciences, Letters and the Arts (Italy). The Assembly furthermore decided to admit The Science Academy, Istanbul (Turkey), as associate member in ALLEA.

The agenda of the 15th ALLEA General Assembly also included the election of the ALLEA Board for the following two years. The Board comprises nine members including the President and two Vice Presidents whose term in office is independent from the one of the Board. All five re-eligible existing Board members were re-elected and the ALLEA delegates elected The Royal Society of Edinburgh, represented by its Vice President Professor Graham Caie, to fill the vacancy and become member of the Board. The  15th ALLEA General Assembly closed with an invitation from the President of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon to hold the next annual meeting in the Portuguese capital on 23 and 24 April 2015.

Keynote speaker Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European Research Council (ERC)

Keynote speaker Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European Research Council (ERC)

The annual business meeting of ALLEA was preceded by a scientific symposium dedicated to the topic “Enabling Early Career Researchers: Needs for Training of a New Generation” on the day prior to the meeting. The symposium included a keynote speech by the President of the European Research Council (ERC), Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, on European efforts in supporting the career paths of early stage scientists and scholars.

Further presentations and panel discussions provided manifold perspectives on the issue, particularly detailing the Norwegian practise and strategy and displaying the views of early career researchers themselves. Professor Lauritz Broder Holm-Nielsen, Vice President of the European Universities Association (EUA), laid a special focus on the efforts of Universities in training early career researchers in Europe.

The symposium was followed by a festive event celebrating ALLEA´s 20th anniversary opened by a speech on “The role of academies in a European research and education area” by the President of ALLEA, Professor Günter Stock. Further highlights included a video address by the laureate of the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values 2014, Professor Luisa Passerini, elaborating on “Affective Narratives for Europe”, as well as a festive lecture by Professor Étienne François, Emeritus Professor of History in Paris and Berlin, discussing the question “Between National and Global: Europe as a Research Space”.

Welcome Address by Professor Nils Chr. Stenseth,  President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Welcome Address by Professor Nils Chr. Stenseth, President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

The audience was welcomed by Professor Nils Chr. Stenseth, President of the hosting Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and Dr Björn Haugstad, State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry for Education and Research. Among the guests of the festive event were four past presidents of ALLEA as well as the Presidents of partner organisations in Europe: Professor Jos van der Meer, President of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and Professor Lars Walloe, President of  Academia Europaea.

Presentations and pictures of the symposium and festive event are made available here.
Please click for further information about The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Download Press Release here

President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso awards All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values to Italian Professor of Cultural History

from left: Professor Günter Stock, ALLEA President, Laureate Professor Luisa Passerini, José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission

from left: Professor Günter Stock, ALLEA President, Laureate Professor Luisa Passerini, José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission

At the award ceremony in the premises of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in Brussels on 9 April 2014 José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, honoured the laureate´s exceptional scholarly work on European cultural values and European identity. The prize is initiated by ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and co-sponsored by Stiftung Mercator. It is endowed with 25,000 Euro.

“A sense of belonging to Europe, to a community of values and culture, is essential to forge that common destiny. Europe is us, each of us. And each of us can make a difference in Europe and contribute to driving positive change. This is what ALLEA is doing through its wide range of activities. This is also what Professor Luisa Passerini is working on, looking at what holds us together. I congratulate Professor Luisa Passerini for her exceptional work which forms part of the important scholarly contributions towards an understanding of Europe as an intellectual and cultural entity”, stated José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission. Click here for the complete speech.

In his opening remarks, Professor Günter Stock, ALLEA President and chairman of the prize jury, pointed out: “It is a pleasure that today we can honour a personality who is so strongly engaged in investigating Europe´s cultures and values. At the same time she follows a critical and professional – truly scientific – approach when it comes to Eurocentrism.”

With reference to President Barroso´s initiative ‘A New Narrative for Europe’ he stated that “we as academies felt invited to contribute and to help creating new narratives. One of these symbolic – as I would call them – narratives, is the creation of the ‘Madame de Staël prize’ for European scholars working in the field of European values.”

Luisa Passerini is part-time Professor at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York, and former Professor of Cultural History at the University of Turin, Italy. She heads the ERC funded research project “Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and Beyond” (BABE) which aims to understand new forms of European identity. Luisa Passerini´s further research fields include History of subjectivity, including forms of European identity, Gender and generations or Diasporic subjectivities.

In his laudatory speech, Etienne François, Professor Emeritus of History in Paris and Berlin, characterised Luisa Passerini as “a historian who has proved in her scholarly works that Europe can be better understood from its margins and from the outside than from what is considered its centre.”

ALLEA has established the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, awarded for the first time in 2014, in order to display the boundless intellectual and cultural diversity and richness of Europe and to highlight outstanding contributions of scholarly work, particularly in the fields of the humanities and social sciences.

Click here to learn more about the prize, the laureate and for further information.

See more pictures and a video of all speeches on the pages of the European Commission.

Download Press Release

15th ALLEA General Assembly in Oslo, Norway, on 24/25 April 2014

news bannerThe 15th General Assembly of the European federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, ALLEA (ALL European Academies), will take place on the premises of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo on 24 and 25 April 2014.

The annual meeting of ALLEA is traditionally preceded by a scientific symposium which this year is dedicated to the issue “Enabling early career researchers – needs for training of a new generation”. A keynote will be given by the President of the European Research Council Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon followed by contributions both from outstanding early career researchers and renowned senior scholars and science policy makers who will shed light on different perspectives of a rapidly changing research environment with particular attention to the consequences that these changes represent for the training and preparation of a new generation of scientists and scholars.

With a festive event in the evening of 24 April 2014, ALLEA will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Guests of honour will be the State Secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, Dr Bjørn Haugstad, as well as Professor Étienne François, Emeritus of the Free University of Berlin and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and Member of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Professor Francois will hold the festive lecture on the basis of his laudatory speech for the laureate of the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values Professor Luisa Passerini The prize winner, who is currently lecturing in New York, will address the audience via video conference.

The programme of and further information about the symposium and the festive session be found here.

On the second day of the General Assembly, 25 April 2014, in the internal ALLEA business meeting, the delegations of all member academies are invited to discuss major topics of the ALLEA´s future policy, work and mission. The General Assembly will elect the ALLEA Board for the period 2014 – 2016 and decide about the admission of new member academies.

The General Assembly is ALLEA’s highest legislative body, where all Member Academies decide on the federation’s policy, governance bodies and budget. The GA programme typically consists of two parts, a scientific conference and a business meeting. The conference sessions are devoted to presentations of papers and activities usually linked to or expanding on ALLEA core activities.

Last year´s conference in Berlin addressed the topic “Management of Large Data Corpora”, the symposium in Rome in 2012 was dedicated to a special session with the Vice President of the European Commission, Ms Neelie Kroes, about “The Digital Agenda and Access to Scientific Information”.

Click here for information and documentation of previous ALLEA General Assemblies.

2014 Madame de Staël Prize – Ceremony