Foreword
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities has the task of developing new scientific questions in a constant scientific exchange among its members, offering possible solutions, and especially fostering dialog and cooperation with young scientists. The progress of science in the present day poses completely new questions for the Academy, which aims to preserve the cultural heritage of our society and make it accessible for the present, to mediate the discussion between the natural sciences and the humanities in particular, and to offer decision-making aids to politicians and the public.The members of the Heidelberg Academy therefore feel compelled to reassure themselves of their mission, their scientific responsibility and their potential impact. The result is set out in this status report, which we are now presenting to the public.
Heidelberg, November 2013
Prof. Dr. Paul Kirchhof
1. Mission
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities is a community of scholars who want to bring together their different scientific cultures in a constant professional exchange, develop guiding principles of science and discover new things in the encounter of disciplines. The Heidelberg Academy fosters interdisciplinary dialog, intergenerational research and exchange between science and the public. The Academy and its members create a forum for the unity of the sciences, which must be regained in an age of specialization. Science achieves great gains in knowledge by dividing itself into many sub-disciplines, but in this division of labor it needs a place to meet in order to exchange experiences, broaden perspectives and open up new observations and insights by combining results and methodological approaches. This is the only way to find holistic, scientifically sound answers to the questions of a complex world. The Heidelberg Academy is one such meeting place. The Heidelberg Academy builds bridges between the universities and scientific institutions in Baden-Württemberg. It is probably the only institution in the state where the great scientific successes of its universities and research institutions are shared and outstanding minds work together in personal discussions and joint research projects.
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities was founded in 1909 with private funds in order to bridge the existing gap between the humanities and natural sciences. In the meantime, science has become considerably more subdivided and is in danger of becoming alien to its individual disciplines. To counteract this, the Academy brings together humanities scholars, cultural and social scientists as well as natural scientists, life scientists and engineers. The two classes of the Academy - the Philosophical-Historical and the Mathematical-Scientific - aim to discuss fundamental questions of the present and the future in a joint scientific effort and to propose solutions. The Academy is - again, probably the only scientific institution in Baden-Württemberg - open to all disciplines. In critical self-reflection, it will continue to renew its personnel in the future in such a way that the diversity of disciplines and plurality of content in the sciences and humanities practiced in Baden-Württemberg come together in the Academy. It constantly reviews the practice of electing its members, in particular in order to foster the interaction between the disciplines in their diversity, the younger and older members, the scientists and academics.
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities aims to accompany the political controversies of the present with its scientific advice, but sees itself primarily as a forum for the scientifically based discussion of various solution strategies in its mission of basic research. In its responsibility for the unity of science and for scientific cooperation in diversity, the Heidelberg Academy works in various closely interlinked scientific committees and projects:
- Members' research is presented and discussed in class and plenary meetings. In addition, there are interdisciplinary working groups on central, interdisciplinary fundamental problems. The exchange across the boundaries of subjects or classes offers the opportunity to critically rethink disciplinary narrow-mindedness and to advance to new interdisciplinary questions and solution strategies. This added value arises from personal encounters, which find a special institutional framework in the academy. The academy offers space for the unexpected, for surprised amazement, for scientific research beyond routine scientific procedures, for new insights that open up in border areas of the sciences.
- The Academies' Program of the Federal and State Governments enables sustainability projects that do not follow the rhythm of individual qualification work - designed for 3 to 6 years - as laid down in financial planning, reporting obligations, proof of use and success as well as evaluations. The time perspectives are determined by the object of investigation and not by the working rhythm of an individual researcher. The DFG has excluded these long-term projects from its funding and assigned them to the Academies' Program. The cultural and scientific significance of the long-term projects is based on this sustainability effect and their long-term funding is justified.
- The Heidelberg Academy works on projects on basic and key topics of cultural and humanities research, from research into the beginning of human history to the preservation, documentation, research and development of the cultural heritage of several millennia to the cultural reorientation of the present. The academic qualifications of its members, the support of more than twenty sustainable research projects, often extending beyond one academic generation, and the support of public research funds oblige the Heidelberg Academy to structure interdisciplinary research thematically and to promote young researchers. By developing new projects, the Academy offers young scientists in particular an outstanding opportunity to acquire and utilize innovative fields of research. The Academy is currently increasingly seeking to build bridges between scientific cultures and thus offer young scientists space for new research ideas.
- Academic freedom presupposes trust in freedom and requires academics who, thanks to a multi-stage qualification process, have proven their ability and willingness to work academically and have gained recognition at universities and in their field. The Heidelberg Academy is also an institution of this trust in freedom. It relies on the excellence of its members, on the quality of its projects, on the expertise and impartiality of its project leaders, staff and evaluators. The Academy's successes confirm this concept of freedom.
2. Academy of the State
A country's standing, economic power and political influence depend to a large extent on its scientific strength and technical capabilities. The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities is an academy of the state whose scientific performance stands out in the present and is based on the tradition of its universities in Freiburg, Heidelberg, Hohenheim, Karlsruhe, Constance, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Tübingen and Ulm. With more than ten million inhabitants, the state of Baden-Württemberg is comparable to medium-sized European states such as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic or Hungary. Economically, culturally and scientifically, it is one of the leading regions in Europe.
It is therefore only natural for Baden-Württemberg - as for the aforementioned medium-sized European states - to have its own academy. A state with particularly efficient universities, inventive, innovative small and medium-sized enterprises and an industry focused on research and development needs such a place of scientific integration, where medicine, technology, the natural sciences, humanities and cultural sciences work together, question each other, challenge existing research content and research methods and seek to anticipate and answer the questions facing science in the future. These cross-disciplinary insights into science are also essential for public education. This cooperation is particularly fruitful in research projects that examine and preserve the cultural heritage of the state of Baden-Württemberg and make it accessible for the present. Editions of the works of important children of the state make accessible those materials that document a rich cultural tradition and make the state and its democracy understandable and conscious. The Heidelberg Academy is part of Baden-Württemberg's academic landscape, is visible in all parts of the state through its external meetings and has an impact beyond the borders of the state, Germany and Europe. The Academy is associated with corresponding members from other states and external members of the scientific project commissions. It fulfills its tasks within the circle of the eight German regional academies and in close cooperation with research institutions in Germany and abroad. It makes a significant contribution to strengthening the science location in south-west Germany through nationwide cooperation, expanding it by stimulating the content of the various specialist disciplines and attracting important scholars from all over the world.
3. Encounter between the specialist disciplines
The academy concept demands that the problems of technical, economic and social modernity be solved scientifically in new forms of encounter. The more transportation technology develops, the greater the environmental dangers it causes. The more widely the media disseminate their information, the more their influence on people's freedom grows. The more intensively personal data is collected and used, the more privacy is affected. Advances in medicine and technology in particular cause side effects that need to be monitored, understood, controlled and restricted. The problems of life sciences, natural sciences and technology must be solved by scientists. The dangers of scientific and technological progress can only be averted and adverse consequences only mitigated by those who understand and control these processes and effects and know how to communicate them to society. The natural, economic, social and cultural sciences must work together in order to anticipate new issues arising from scientific progress and to critically analyze misguided political, economic and cultural decisions. This is why we need a place where leading representatives of the individual disciplines can exchange their sometimes differing perspectives and discuss interdisciplinary problems independently of political expectations and interest-based guidelines.
Academic exchange between disciplines often acts as a catalyst, dispelling misconceptions that arise from specialization and methodological narrow-mindedness, transforming supposed certainty into thoughtfulness, turning the focus from the detail to the whole. The self-administration of an academy offers tried and tested forms of research and publication that bring the solidity of tried and tested knowledge, the reliability of a scientifically based prediction, the thoughtfulness of a mere assumption into public and parliamentary discussions. The members of the Academy are specialists in their field, but are always aware that specialization makes it difficult to find appropriate answers to interdisciplinary questions. They therefore seek interdisciplinary, fact-oriented discussion in the Academy, bring to the Academy's work an independence that has been tried and tested in research and teaching, and push for further experience, data, insights and interpretations that also further develop their own subject. This gives rise to new disciplines. Traditional sciences expand and correct their perspectives. Experienced and young academics come together in joint working groups and to explore new issues. In the constant flow of science, the academies offer a fixed point where outstanding scientists gather to examine their questions with each other, renew their working methods, exchange their results and jointly seek new insights.
4. Sustainability
Politicians want to develop social life, the treatment of nature and the development of human values in a sustainable manner and expect support from science in this. The basic needs of all people should be satisfied, their quality of life improved and the idea of peace, human dignity and freedom spread across generations worldwide. Science helps us to understand the world by acquiring and providing knowledge in a methodically controlled manner and with a commitment to humanity. The intellectual edifice of science is never unassailably complete, preserving its solidity in the constant correction of errors, striving to come ever closer to the truth over the long term. According to its future-oriented, cross-generational claim, this science needs sustainably organized research. In a fast-moving age in which politics focuses on election periods, industry on quarterly reports and the stock markets on daily prices, science seeks knowledge and insights that outlast current trends, provide the present with long-term perspectives and renew knowledge in continuity - according to proven methods and reliable principles. Just as today's forester plants a tree that will at best benefit his grandchild economically, but in doing so safeguards a natural environment, science also creates sustainable values that preserve and renew intellectual foundations of life, experiences, ideas and community concepts far beyond the present day. This sustainability is particularly cultivated at the Academy of Sciences. It provides the space in which long-term continuous observations and surveys are possible, data collections for editions of extensive text corpora and lexicons are compiled and made available to the public.
This work often exceeds the manpower and lifetime of a single researcher and requires interdisciplinary cooperation between scholars. In the international scientific landscape, only the Academies of Sciences and Humanities and the research projects they sponsor offer this place of sustainability. By researching nature and the environment in an intergenerational approach, by opening up, safeguarding and visualizing cultural heritage and by constantly developing databases, the academies create a store of knowledge on which future generations can build. Academies also shape their scientific environment with their sustainability projects. The research projects are critically and constructively supported by expert commissions. The projects need and seek international cooperation. Experienced scientists and proven specialists introduce young scientists to the subject matter. At the same time, young researchers bring new perspectives to the Academy's projects with their view of life and science. In this way, competence centers are created that constantly pose new questions, initiate sustainable research, develop and update reliable assessment and action perspectives for culture, business and the state.
5. Fundamental research
A science with a sustainable impact, which satisfies the basic needs of all people and improves the quality of life of the present and future generations, is designed to explore and understand the foundations of human action and thought. Great ideas have always been the driving force behind fundamental reforms, in the modern age in particular the idea of human rights and world peace, advances in medicine, production, transportation and media technologies. The Heidelberg Academy is dedicated to this fundamental research in the diversity of its sciences, building bridges between the various universities and research institutions, especially in Baden-Württemberg. It understands the emergence and transformation of cultures in language, understands the present of speech from the origin of language, recognizes in the agreement thanks to language a basis for the cohesion of cultures and democracies. In linguistic and historical sustainability projects, the Academy makes people aware of how humans develop their ability to observe and experience, to compare and evaluate, to organize and understand, to meet and share, to exchange and agree, to act together and collectively. The Heidelberg Academy researches past writing and language cultures, organizes and interprets the cultures of different areas of life and regions, gives contemporary knowledge and thinking a foundation and reliability, and makes us aware that the often fragmentary documents must be understood in the context of their origin and our cultural present. The natural sciences capture the world in the precision of numbers, measurability, the collection and combination of data.
The natural sciences and the humanities meet at a fundamental level when they critically question the aim and method of their experiments, examine what numbers reveal or conceal, how human actions and cultural characteristics must be measured and understood. This is why the Academy, in cooperation and diversity of disciplines, asks to what extent science can measure and count the world, to what extent it must understand and fathom the world. The academy is the place where fundamental questions are answered rationally in the rationality of cause and effect, of trial and error, of refutation and confirmation. Basic research is open to all the consequences that scientific activity can have for people. The Heidelberg Academy cultivates this openness not in the diversity of faculties, but between two classes. Both classes meet in their respective experiential knowledge, thinking “in the space of causes”, and their orientational knowledge, thinking in the “space of reasons”. Regularly entering these two spaces gives all members of the academy the opportunity to measure and understand a piece of nature, to fathom the significance of man and his environment, to explain and justify his ways of life and maxims of life, to change familiar but long-term harmful behaviors. The Academy is institutionally and personally designed to be a place of intellectual breadth, questioning, sustainable thinking and special responsibility for the future.
6. Quality expectation
Science strives for improvement, aiming to add new insights to the knowledge of yesterday and correct past mistakes. Accordingly, scientists are selected based on their professional qualifications, their ability to innovate, their openness to continuous self-criticism, and their willingness to collaborate scientifically. This is particularly true for the criteria by which members of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences are appointed. Proposals for new members are reviewed in a multi-stage selection process and voted on by the plenary of members from both classes.
To date, 31 members of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences have been awarded the Nobel Prize (27) and the Balzan Prize (4). Nine of these are still active today. Additionally, there are 41 holders of the Pour Le Mérite Order, 30 recipients of the Leibniz Prize, and 16 winners of the State Research Prize of Baden-Württemberg.
These figures, along with other awards received by Academy members, serve as an encouragement to ensure long-term scientific excellence with every new appointment, while also considering the diversity of disciplines at scientific locations in Baden-Württemberg. The high scientific standards also determine the Academy’s projects. New project proposals are reviewed after external evaluation by a multidisciplinary commission and submitted to the Union of Academies within the framework of the Academies Program funded by the federal government and the states. The Academy's third-party funding exceeds its base funding by more than three times. The funded projects are regularly assessed by scientific commissions regarding their objectives, research progress, and future prospects. The projects are also externally evaluated at regular intervals.
7. Scientific talent
Scientific excellence starts with the promotion of young talent. With the support of the state of Baden-Württemberg, the Heidelberg Academy has launched a unique nationwide initiative that offers the best young researchers in the region an opportunity for funding. The Academy finances interdisciplinary projects for young scientists, providing them with a special space for research and enabling exchange with Academy members. In this way, the Heidelberg Academy contributes to making Baden-Württemberg an even more attractive location for young scientists and a starting point for forward-looking scientific projects.
- In 2002, with the support of the state of Baden-Württemberg, the Heidelberg Academy established the Scientific Junior Fellow Program (WIN-Kolleg) to promote young researchers in Baden-Württemberg through affiliation with and proximity to the Academy, support its projects, and encourage and deepen interdisciplinary cooperation among young scientists. Young researchers can become WIN fellows if they are active at universities and research institutions in the state and have distinguished themselves through innovative scientific achievements. The program enables these researchers to collaborate on projects from various disciplines. It requires them to independently organize their joint scientific endeavors. Members of the Academy provide advisory support to the project groups. In this way, the WIN-Kolleg embraces the idea of cross-disciplinary dialogue within the Academy and simultaneously enriches its scientific program. To date, 13 projects on various topics have been funded through the WIN-Kolleg.
- Since 2007, the Academy has invited young researchers to organize conferences, where they can host interdisciplinary symposia and working meetings. The young researchers determine the theme of the conference themselves and organize it independently. An Academy member advises the group. To date, 13 conferences have been supported. In 2013, this support was extended to include international Academy conferences. Currently, one German-Czech and one German-Baltic conference are being supported.
- With the Academy Fellowship established in 2010, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences fosters dialogue between young and experienced scientists. Academy members select young researchers to join the Academy Fellowship. This gives them the right to participate in the Academy's meetings, observe the Academy's work, particularly in its sustainability projects, and take part in discussions within the Academy.
- Outstanding scientific staff at the Academy's research institutes are supported through postdoctoral scholarships. In the final year before completing their work, they are given a half-time position to focus on their habilitation.
- The Heidelberg Academy awards four prizes annually for outstanding scientific achievements to selected young researchers – the Academy Prize, the Karl-Freudenberg Prize, the Walter-Witzenmann Prize, and the Ecology Prize of the Sigrid and Viktor Dulger Foundation.
8. Volunteerism
Our professional and economic system is based on the principle that services are compensated through reciprocation, and that incentives for ever-better performance are created through remuneration. In addition to this market-driven exchange, a world of selfless contributions has developed, where volunteers take on tasks solely for the sake of the cause. This has led to a growing culture of public service. The members of the Heidelberg Academy engage in voluntary work. They dedicate their efforts to the Academy without compensation. This applies to their involvement in the Academy’s commissions, their support of scientific projects, and their evaluation of new proposals. This volunteerism shapes the identity and activities of the Academy. The Academy does not generate economically measurable returns. The projects are not designed for profit maximization. The members do not earn profits. Scientific achievements are not individually rewarded, but benefit the public good. The goal of research is not financial gain, but knowledge. The Academy operates exclusively for the public benefit. It is funded by public resources and charitable donations. This volunteerism saves public funds, particularly from the state budget, counters the profit-driven nature of society with a science-based concept of public benefit, and keeps profit motives away from the Academy’s member-organized body. Volunteering is inherent to scientific freedom. This freedom makes the Academy’s work independent, impartial, and unbiased. Research endeavors and findings are not dependent on demand, which would recognize services and compensate them with fees. Research remains independent because it is not committed to any political direction, interest group, or stakeholder knowledge and does not follow political goals in its scientific mission. Academy research is impartial, free in spirit and action, demonstrating through the content, form, and style of its work that its research and publications pursue scientific objectives. The Academy is solely defined by the principles and methods of science. This is the basis for its research successes, its recognition, and the sustainability of its impact. The Academy members carry out their duties as an honorific position – to the best of their knowledge and conscience.
9. Public visibility
Science is designed for publication. In the workshop of science, new insights are generated that demand publication, offering them to the public in order to improve the living conditions and culture of people. In the work domain of science, researchers search for new knowledge. In its realm, science encounters the public, seeks to discuss and clarify new insights, and recommends their use. The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences is an institution supported by the democratic public, serving the public, the citizens, and thus democracy. In its early decades, the Academy engaged with the public primarily through its publications, lecture events, and scientific discussions. Today, the Academy uses a wide range of media to communicate new insights, perspectives, and understanding to the public.
- Modern information technology is shifting the boundaries between knowledge accessible to the general public and specialized expertise. The Academy constantly ensures the clarity of its scientific language, checks the comprehensibility of its statements for the general public, and organizes Academy conferences to bring science and society together. It introduces new fields of science to interested citizens through lectures, particularly through a lecture series organized independently by the scientific staff, in order to provide guidance in the diversity of scientific disciplines.
- Lectures, symposia, panel discussions, as well as live chats and Twitter sessions make research projects and findings accessible to the general public. The topics range from "Energy and Environment" to "Aging and Old Age" to "Policy Advice in Democracy," covering both current issues and development-related sustainability. Scientific lectures after plenary sessions and in the staff lecture series inform the public in an understandable way about research projects, such as Goethe’s language, the role of culture in the spread of humankind, or nanoscience research. They report on unusual discoveries, reveal their scientific goals and hopes, and bring the Academy closer to the public.
- The "Academy Salon" invites the public to scholarly conversations. This culture of engagement is currently focused on the theme "Wunderkind" and discusses the phenomenon of early talent in music. The foundation for this has been developed by the research project "History of Southwestern German Court Music in the 18th Century," which has rediscovered previously lost compositions, transcribed music for modern performance, and made it accessible for staging. These small world premieres highlight the Academy’s goal of making the cultural foundations of our society conscious and accessible for the present.
- At the annual "Academy Lecture," scholars of worldwide renown speak about their research. Last year, Pulitzer Prize winner Professor Stephen Greenblatt from Harvard University discussed the fascination with the Renaissance and the birth of the modern era.
- The Academy reaches out to the public through its annual celebration and yearbook, where it publishes its most important questions, results, and plans. In this way, the Academy fulfills its mission to seek public engagement and criticism in research, but above all, to present its research findings for discussion, encourage the use of research outcomes, and prepare them for application.
10. Summary
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences unites scholars who, through continuous exchange between their disciplines, bring together different scientific cultures and further develop methods of scientific work. The Academy fosters interdisciplinary dialogue, sustainable research, and the exchange between science and the public. It conducts research projects on fundamental cultural and humanities research, ranging from the exploration of the beginnings of human history to the preservation and exploration of cultural heritage spanning millennia, to the cultural reorientation of the present. In the encounter between experienced and young scientists, the Academy particularly promotes the exchange between the natural sciences and the humanities.
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences is an academy of the state that significantly contributes to strengthening the scientific location in southwestern Germany, with its high-performing universities and innovative companies, through the cooperation of medicine, technology, natural sciences, humanities, and cultural sciences. This synergy of various disciplines enhances the region and makes it an attractive destination for distinguished scholars from all over the world.
The members of the Academy are highly qualified specialists in their fields. Aware that specialization enables new insights but also makes it more challenging to find appropriate answers to interdisciplinary questions, they seek in the Academy an interdisciplinary, topic-oriented dialogue, from which new disciplines emerge or traditional scientific perspectives are expanded and corrected, allowing scientists to collaborate in joint working groups and research questions.
The government aims to sustainably develop social life, the relationship with nature, and the realization of human values, and it expects support from science in these efforts. The Academy provides the space for long-term projects that are sustainably pursued and effective, free from the short cycles of financial planning and qualification work, continuing beyond the individual researcher and in continuous research groups. In this way, knowledge repositories are created, upon which future generations can build.
The Academy becomes a competence center where new questions are constantly raised, sustainable research is initiated, and reliable perspectives for culture, economy, and state are developed and advanced. The Heidelberg Academy is dedicated to fundamental research in its diverse sciences. It understands the emergence and transformation of cultures in language, recognizing in language-based agreements the foundation for the cohesion of cultures and democracy. In linguistic and historical projects, the Academy makes conscious how humans think, perceive their environment, communicate with others, exchange ideas, and make agreements, developing communities of action, protection, and life. In this way, the Academy provides knowledge and thinking with a foundation and reliability, ensuring a sustainable future in its origins and cultural present.
In the Academy, the humanities and cultural sciences meet the question of how human actions and cultural identity must be measured, understood, and interpreted. The Academy selects its scientists based on their outstanding professional qualifications, their innovative spirit, and their openness to self-criticism and scientific collaboration. New members are evaluated in a multi-stage selection process and elected by the plenary of members from both classes – the Philosophical-Historical and Mathematical-Natural Sciences. So far, 31 members of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences have been awarded the Nobel Prize (27) and the Balzan Prize (4). Of these, nine are still active today, along with 41 holders of the Pour le Mérite Order, 30 winners of the Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation, and 16 winners of the State Research Prize of Baden-Württemberg.
This high scientific standard also determines the Academy’s projects, which are proposed and carried out by its members. The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, with the support of the state of Baden-Württemberg, has launched a unique nationwide initiative that offers the best young scientists across the state an opportunity for support. The Scientific Junior Fellows Program (WIN-Kolleg) supports interdisciplinary cooperation among young researchers. Academy conferences provide young scientists with the opportunity to organize interdisciplinary symposia and working meetings. The Academy Collegium promotes dialogue between young and experienced scientists. Outstanding scientific staff in the Academy’s research centers receive habilitation scholarships. Annually, four prizes are awarded for outstanding scientific achievements.
The members of the Heidelberg Academy serve on a voluntary basis. They dedicate their work to the Academy without compensation. This voluntary commitment embodies independence from the pursuit of economic gain and financiers, offering a conceptual distance from our highly work-oriented society. Volunteering strengthens scientific freedom. It relieves the budgets of the state and federal governments.
Science is designed for publication, seeking the public to discuss new findings, make them publicly understandable, and recommend their application. The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences fosters this public engagement through modern information technology, lectures, symposia, panel discussions, the Academy Salon, the Academy Lecture, and the annual celebrations and yearbooks. Topics range from "Energy and Environment" to "Aging and Old Age," "Science and Society," Goethe’s language, the role of culture in the spread of humankind, nanoscience, "Wunderkind," and the language in which sciences communicate with each other and with the public.
In this way, the Academy fulfills its mission to be a body of sustainable basic research and exchange between scientific disciplines, serving the democratically shaped public and addressing its needs.