The ZEIT Science Forum is an event initiated by the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT in association with the ZEIT Foundation, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and the broadcaster Deutschlandfunk in order to raise awareness of scientific issues within the broader public and is today a leading forum for the debate on the future direction of science in Germany.
The Distinguished W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture was initiated jointly by the Humboldt University Berlin, the American Embassy, Harvard University and the Veranstaltungsforum der Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck. Speakers to date have included US Ambassador Daniel Coats, Richard Sennett, Hayden White and Henry Louis Gates Jr. The main focus of this lecture series to pursue the transatlantic dialogue is a transatlantic perspective on the way that public culture operates, the political role of cultural differences and the nature of cultural interaction. W.E.B. Du Bois, to whom the lecture series owes its title, was the first Afro-American to obtain a doctorate from Harvard University (1895); in 1958 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Humboldt University. Guestspeaker in 2007 was E. L. Doctorow.
Max-Planck-Forum: The Munich Office of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and the Veranstaltungsforum der Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck set up the Max Planck Forum Berlin at the beginning of 2003. Outstanding Max Planck research institutes and their individual researchers working at various locations across Germany were presented in Berlin, the capital of Germany, through discussions of issues of current academic interest. Topics discussed to date include organized crime, brain research and immunology.
Germany and Switzerland as Neighbours - Ideas for the Future: Conferences on topical scientific issues held in cooperation with the Swiss Embassy, nature, Scientific American, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and Berlin's universities. The topics addressed to date have included: Climate change – How can we deal with a new ice age? and Position of points – Concepts for a sustainable transportation policy.
Research Dialogues in Berlin: This series was held in cooperation with the Senat Administration for Science, Research and Culture and the Technology Foundation Innovation Agency Berlin. Its aims were to highlight the potentials and attractiveness of Berlin as a centre for research and development and to draw up blueprints for necessary structural improvements and for beacon projects to enhance the efficiency of interaction between the scientific and the business communities in growth areas for research and innovation.
Universities of the Future: German Federal Minister Edelgard Bulmahn was the keynote speaker at the Round Table on Towards the Knowledge Society held on 4 June 2003 in Berlin as part of this series of transatlantic meetings. The Round Table, with a panel including the Ambassador of the United States of America to Germany, H.E. Daniel R. Coats, and the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the USA, H.E. Wolfgang Ischinger, Washington, D.C., was the closing event for this three-part series of conferences. Building up on existing visions, leading German and American experts from politics, research and the business community devised new and practicable options for reforming higher education, mainly in Germany but also in the United States. Their reform proposals were presented to the public in Berlin and then debated by eminent politicians, researchers and business leaders. The Universities of the Future series was held jointly by the Embassy of the United States of America, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Fulbright Commission, the Conference of Principals in Higher Education and the Veranstaltungsforum der Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.