In brief: With a history dating back to 1951, the basic concept of the meetings is to bring together excellent young scientists from all over the world with Nobel Laureates. The aim of the meetings’ various sessions and social activities is determined by the guiding principle “Educate. Inspire. Connect.”. The meetings focus alternately on a different discipline.

The meetings are held annually in summer and last almost a week. With regard to the natural sciences, the disciplines of the meetings alternate in a regular three-year cycle: physics in 2012, chemistry in 2013, and physiology and medicine in 2014.
The meetings on economic sciences take place every three years, irrespective of the cycle of the meetings on natural sciences. The next economics meeting will be in 2014, then 2017, and so on.
However, the interdisciplinary meetings on natural sciences disrupt this regular cycle of disciplines. They are held every five years (2015, 2020, 2025, and so on), displacing the regularly destined mono-disciplinary meetings, which are then held in the following year.

Hence, the sequence of meetings in the near future is as follows:

• 2012: physics
• 2013: chemistry
• 2014: physiology and medicine + economic sciences
• 2015: interdisciplinary meeting (displacing the physics meeting)
• 2016: physics
• 2017: chemistry
• 2018: physiology and medicine + economic sciences
• 2019: physics
• 2020: interdisciplinary meeting (displacing the chemistry meeting)
• 2021: chemistry
• 2022: physiology and medicine + economic sciences

As their name “Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings” indicates, the meetings take place in Lindau, a town and municipality in southern Germany (find Lindau on a map here). Lindau forms part of the federal state called the Free State of Bavaria, and is located on the eastern shores of Lake Constance (“Bodensee” in German). Lindau has around 25,000 inhabitants. The larger part of the town is onshore, whereas the historic centre lies on an island, connected to the mainland by a bridge for cars and pedestrians and a railway embankment.
The meeting venue is the conference hall “Inselhalle”, located on the island of Lindau.

The address of the meeting venue is:

Inselhalle Lindau
Zwanzigerstraße 10
88131 Lindau
Germany

Find out more about Lindau here.

The meetings are organised by the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings with the support of the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance. Together, both institutions have about 20 members working in an honorary capacity.
The council maintains an executive secretariat, which is in charge of planning, implementation, and any day-to-day business.

Find out more about the institutions and people involved here:

• Council/Foundation: General Information
• Council/Foundation: The Council: Members
• Council/Foundation: Foundation: Members of the Board
• Executive Secretariat: Contact

The meetings are funded by public authorities, academic institutions, foundations dedicated to the promotion of science, companies, and individuals.
The Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance, itself an important funder of the meetings, constantly receives considerable contributions to its endowment.
Please follow these links to find out more about the endowment contributors, the supporters of the meetings on natural sciences, and the supporters of the meetings on economics sciences.

On average, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings are attended by 20 to 35 Nobel Laureates each year. They come to Lindau to meet around 550 young scientists – this is the average number of nominated young scientists who pass the council’s multi-step nomination and selection process each year. The multitude of esteemed and up-and-coming participants as well as the variety of interesting sessions and social activities attracts many journalists and media representatives. However, only Nobel Laureates and accepted young researchers may participate in all of the sessions and activities of the meetings. This helps to provide for the special informality and profoundness of personal encounters and exchange of ideas that take place at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

Open to a broader public are social events like the “Grill & Chill” barbecue, which is very popular among the citizens of Lindau as well as all meeting participants – Laureates, young scientists, and journalists. Pupils from nearby schools are often invited to special sessions to meet and discuss with a Nobel Laureate, and selected teachers from all over Germany and nearby Austria are regularly invited to attend a full day of a meeting – with sessions and social events dedicated exclusively to them.

There is a multi-step nomination and selection process that determines the participation of young researchers. These are the steps to take if you would like to participate in a meeting:

Apply to be nominated!

Step 1

Check if you meet the selection criteria of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

The most relevant stipulations are:

• You can account for excellent achievements, appraisements, and merits in your scientific career.
• You are not older than 35 years of age.
• You do not have a permanent professional working position.

Step 2

Approach one of our Academic Partners in your current country of residence and apply to be nominated as a potential participant. Find out more about the network of Academic Partners of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings below.

Check our list of Academic Partners to find out whom to contact. Please note that you can only be nominated by an Academic Partner in your current country of residence – there is no point in contacting others.
If there is no Academic Partner in your country, or if you have difficulties in identifying an Academic Partner responsible for you, please contact the staff of the Young Researchers Support Team (Contact).

Step 3

If the Academic Partner approves of your application, you will be nominated as a potential participant and enter the selection process.

Pass the selection process!

Step 1

All nominees must create a personal profile in an online database, which can only be accessed by themselves and the reviewers of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. As a nominee, you will receive an automated email containing the link to the database and the login information for your personal profile.

Step 2

Complete your profile within the given time and with special diligence because the contents of your profile essentially accounts for your chances of being selected. Just bear in mind that your profile is one application among several thousands. Believe it or not, the reviewers are pretty good at telling whether you have spent some time and effort in compiling the data, or whether you have been careless. Thus, you should do your best to submit a strong and convincing profile. Get some useful hints on how to complete your profile below.

Once you’ve been selected, start packing for your stay in Lindau!

The reviewers of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings select around 550 young scientists from among the nominees who submitted their database profiles. These 550 people are accepted to participate in the respective upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and will receive notification by email.

The principal procedure for the selection of participants is similar every year, as are the timelines for nominations and the selection process. The course of events for the selection process for the economics meeting is similar to that for the science meetings. Applicants, nominees and selected participants might want to be aware of the following timeline:

September

The nomination period opens. After a first contest on a national level the academic partners nominate young researchers for participation in the respective upcoming meeting for the following year. If you would like to be among the nominees, contact the applicable Academic Partner well before October!

Example: Contact our academic partners before September 2013, when they will start nominating young researchers for participation in the 2014 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

October / November

The nomination period closes. All nominees are contacted to complete a database profile for evaluation by mid-December.  

December

The second level of the evaluation period begins. All nominees must have compiled and completed their database profiles.

February / March

The evaluation of nominees is concluded: the scientific chairs of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings have selected the participants for the respective upcoming meeting. Nominees and the academic partners are informed of the final results of the evaluation and the accepted young researchers receive their invitations for the relevant meeting. They also get further information and instruction about the preparations for their visit to Lindau.

In the selection process, the reviewers will pay special attention to all contents of your database profile. Their objective is to identify the nominees with the best achievements, appraisals, and merits in the scientific careers of the applicants, and interesting backgrounds. Thus, your chances of attracting their special attention might be higher if…:

• you can plausibly prove your scientific achievements, appraisements, and merits.
• you can provide a letter of recommendation from an esteemed scientific mentor or colleague (e.g. your professor). Without such a recommendation, your chances of being selected are poor.
• you tell us something about yourself that does not only concern your professional life. After all, our motto is “Educate. Inspire. Connect.” – we are not too fixated on publications!

Furthermore, please upload a high-quality and high-resolution portrait photo of yourself. This photo will be published in the participant directory of the meeting and might be used for other print products as well.

Please keep your login information safe after you have submitted your profile data – you will need this information for further proceedings before the meeting, and for registering as a Lindau Alumnus after the meeting.

As you can imagine, we do send many thousands of emails with very similar contents, including sometimes cryptic weblinks, to a wide variety of people all over the world. Unfortunately, we share some of these characteristics with spam emails, which is why some email servers along the way may flag our emails as spam.
If you feel that you should have received an email but have not, please contact Young Researcher Support (Contact).

You may also check our homepage or our Facebook fanpage, where we announce milestones such as the sending out of notifications.

Additionally, you may want to white-list the following domains in your email client or account settings:

• lindau-nobel.org
• lindau-nobel.de
• lindau.clvrmail.com
• clvrmail.com

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings cooperate closely with partner institutions and organisations to enable up-and-coming young scientists from around the world to participate in the meetings. These partners–called academic partners–are reknowned academies of sciences, national ministries, university faculties and departments, research organisations, foundations, and international and multinational scientific associations or organisations. Even Nobel Laureates nominate young researchers.

Academic partner institutions in general support the Lindau meetings by covering the travel expenses of their accepted young researchers, as well as a portion of the participant‘s costs (e.g. hotel accommodation). Such partnerships are formally constituted by a mutually agreed and signed Memorandum of Understanding.

The academic partners put forward young reseachers from their own country as potential participants in the meetings. It is important to understand that although the academic partner network has been developing over many years, it is still evolving: nomination procedures are not yet equally established in all regions of the world. The academic partners are the first (and only!) people to contact if you would like to apply for participation. Please note that you can only be nominated by an academic partner in your current country of residence, there is no point in contacting others.

If there is no academic partner in your country, or if you have difficulties in identifying an academic partner responsible for you, please contact the Young Researchers Support of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings (Contact).

Up until the last meeting in 2012, the only way to participate in a Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was via nomination by an official academic partner of the meetings. Although there are several hundred academic partners in more than 80 countries world-wide, there are still two groups that have only very limited or no chances at all to even get nominated:

• young scientists studying in a country where no academic partner exists yet
• young scientists who study outside their home country and will not be nominated by their host country (so-called expats) 

The Lindau Meetings have decided to open the application process to those concerned and enable the participation of even more gifted young scientists with excellent academic achievements.

No. The meetings rely on and trust their academic partners network, and the system of nominations by academic partners will be upheld.
The open application process only applies in the two cases outlined above. All other young scientists shall continue to contact the relevant academic partner to apply for participation.

• Go to application.lindau-nobel.org and follow the instructions to see detailed informations for your country.
• See the list at the end of this menu.

Unfortunately, almost none currently does. As regulations do change though, there is only one way to know for sure: Ask them!

• Go to application.lindau-nobel.org and follow the instructions to get contact details for your country.

There are many reasons. Here are a few:

• Academic partners are excellent representatives of their nation’s science and research environment, and have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of national and regional conditions.
• Academic partners organise national pre-selections of most talented candidates. Only with their nominations, the current excellent quality level can be reached.
• Most academic partners have lots of experience in sending students abroad – this is especially important for countries where travelling abroad for young scientists is not very common. With their expertise and knowledge, academic partners can assist their nominees, both during the application process and when it comes to attending the meeting.
• Academic partners have the means to fund the participation of their nominees, as well as their travel to Lindau and back home.

Yes.

Application is possible at our website at application.lindau-nobel.org.
To apply, you need to fulfill the selection criteria (see below), and you need to provide some data, including at least one recommendation letter and a scanned image of your ID.

Actually, there are many. Most importantly, all candidates need to meet the so-called selection criteria.

Selection Criteria for Young Researchers

Although every year the selection criteria for participating in a specific Lindau Meeting are slightly different, a number of basic requirements have to be met in order to be eligible for nomination.
 

All applicants must:

• show a genuine interest in science and research.
• show a strong commitment to their principal field of studies and to the interdisciplinary work.
• receive strong support of their application from their academic advisor and/or from internationally renowned scientists, through a detailed letter of recommendation.
• be fluent in English and capable of active participation in discussions.
• belong to the top 5 percent of their class.
• not be older than 35 years of age.
• not hold a permanent position as professor/scientist.
• not have participated in previous Lindau Meetings.
• deliver fully completed applications on the website on or before the deadline.
• commit themselves to being present for the full duration of the meeting.

The complete selection criteria are available online.

Because applying does not mean that you will automatically participate. Participation at the meetings is highly contested – several thousand students every year apply for participation, and only about 550 get selected.

Assumably, yes.

All open applications that are received during the application phase and that fullfil the requirements will be evaluated and scored by the review panel of Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

All open applications that reach the cut-off score will then enter the regular application process, i.e. they will be added to the pool of nominated candidates (by the academic partners).

All these applications (including open applications and academic partner nominations) will then again be reviewed, evaluated, and scored. Only the best candidates will be accepted.

There are several reasons, among them:

• We wanted to keep the application process for open applications simple and the entry barrier in terms of technical and formal requirements as low as possible, especially as we are looking forward to receiving many applications from developing countries. Therefore, submitting an open application is rather simple. The following “regular” application process is much more extensive and requires quite some work.
• Those who get nominated by academic partners usually have gone through some kind of national selection process already.

The participation fee is 2,500 € and includes accommodation and boarding during the meeting.

For those applicants from “open applications” who are not able to have their participation fee covered by funds from a local sponsor, a limited number of fellowships is available, provided by the supporters of the Lindau Meetings.

Travel costs have to be borne by the applicants.

We are working on providing a limited number of travel grants; however, your application must not depend on receiving one.

No, getting a fellowship does in no way influence the chances in the selection process. The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings’ goal is to invite the most talentend young scientists.

Finding a sponsor of your own does have two advantages though: As the Lindau Meetings are a non-profit organization that relies on third-party project funding and donations, every contribution to our mission is welcomed. And, if you were able to establish a sponsorship relation in your country, especially for travel costs, this might motivate and enable other participants from your country to apply.

The American journal “Scientific American” has published a very nice feature on some of last year’s successful candidates:
www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=30-under-30

Go to application.lindau-nobel.org, and follow the instructions.
Note that open application is only possible between 1 – 14 October, 2012.

Yes, there are plenty of online resources:

Website: www.lindau-nobel.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LindauNobelLaureatesMeeting
Mediatheque: mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org
Twitter: twitter.com/lindaunobel
Nobel Labs 360°: nobellabs.lindau-nobel.org
Blog: lindau.nature.com

In general, all participants should organise their travel to Lindau on their own. However, some academic partners regularly organise group travel for those participants that were nominated by them, or they provide assistance in organising travel. Please enquire with your AP.

We (the meeting organisers) do, as long as you provide us with the necessary information in your profile (travel details, arrival and departure dates, etc.). You will receive an email asking for the respective information, and you will have about two weeks to provide it. Once we have booked your accommodation, you will receive a confirmation, which you may need in order to apply for a visa or to enter the country.

The fee for participation in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings is € 2,500. It covers the overall participation. In general, it is not the participants who have to pay this fee, because the costs are covered by the academic partners, by supporters of the meetings, or by the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance. Exceptions are participants who have received dedicated grants or fellowships, e.g. Marie Curie Fellowships – these participants have to cover all costs themselves.

All individual costs for travel have to be covered by the participants or their academic partners. Please contact your academic partner for information on how to proceed.

All participants are asked to state their accommodation preferences in the boarding & lodging section of their database profile. The majority of participants will be accommodated in hotels in Lindau. However, as Lindau is a small yet very touristy town, there may be less hotel rooms than participants, which may result in participants having to share rooms. We try hard to keep the number of shared rooms as low as possible, but we cannot avoid it completely. Another accommodation option is to have bed & breakfast and stay at a guest family’s house. This is often an enriching experience and an opportunity to become acquainted with local citizens.

Please note that only a few of the accommodation options provide air conditioning, and not all are equipped with wireless internet or any internet access at all.

• If you know you will be arriving after 18.00 hrs, you should inform the hotel beforehand because they may not have a check-in desk staffed 24 hours a day.
• If you prefer to book a hotel on your own, you are of course free to do so, but please inform us, and note that we will not cover the costs in this case.

Please bear in mind that only the costs of lodging and breakfast are covered by us – you will have to cover all additional costs for extras and amenities like telephone calls, goods from the mini-bar, pay-TV/video, etc.

A map with the location of all accommodations for young researchers is available here.

First, please note that there are several small towns called Lindau, both in Germany and in Switzerland. You should arrange your travel to “Lindau (Bodensee)”, that is Lindau on Lake Constance, in the very south of Bavaria, Germany.

If travelling by plane, you might want to see whether you can book a flight to the small nearby airport in the city of Friedrichshafen (20 km from Lindau), called “Bodensee-Airport Friedrichshafen” (FDH). However, this airport primarily operates domestic flights, e.g. to and from Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main. The international airports closest to Lindau are Munich (MUC) in Germany and Zurich (ZRH) in Switzerland. They are both approximately 2 hours away from Lindau, by car or train. Germany’s largest and busiest international airport is Frankfurt am Main (FRA).

Regional and interregional trains have stops at Lindau central station (Lindau (Bodensee) Hauptbahnhof), located conveniently on the island of Lindau. Please visit the website of Germany’s main railway company, Deutsche Bahn, to find out about connections.

First, check the dates of the respective meeting that you have been invited to attend, e.g. the upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on chemistry: 30 June – 5 July 2013.

We advise you to arrive on 30 June and depart on 5 July. However, if there are no travel options for these days, you may arrive one day before the meeting starts, and depart one day after it ends, and we will cover the accommodation costs for the additional nights. Please note that the accommodation costs for any further extensions of your stay in Lindau will not be covered.

The opening ceremony of meetings on natural sciences is always scheduled on a Sunday – this applies to the 2013 meeting on chemistry, which will be opened on 30 June 2013, at 15.00 hrs. All participants must register before attending the opening ceremony. Sometimes, certain security measures delay the registration process or require you to be in the auditorium well before 15.00 hrs. Therefore, we advise you to arrive at the registration point by 12.00 hrs the latest.

Meetings on natural sciences traditionally end on a Friday – this applies to the 2013 meeting on chemistry, which ends in the evening of 5 July 2013. This last day of the meeting is destined for a full-day excursion by boat to Mainau Island in Lake Constance (near the city of Konstanz/Constance).

Participants may either depart from Mainau Island after the official farewell ceremony at approximately 16.00 hrs (e.g. taxis or public buses can take you to Konstanz main train station), or join the return trip by boat back to Lindau. The boat is scheduled to return to Lindau harbour at 19.00 hrs. Please note that even though Lindau main train station is located directly at Lindau harbour, you should not book an immediate connecting train for your departure from Lindau, as the return of the boat might be delayed.

Please consider that some Academic Partners and partner organisations of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings regularly invite young researchers to participate in pre- or post-conference events. The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings place no formal obligation on you to participate in these events. However, you should participate if you have accepted an invitation to do so. You will receive notification well in advance if you are invited, and should thus be able to organise your travel accordingly

Please verify well in advance of organising your travel whether you need a visa to visit Germany and the EU (“Schengen Countries”). The homepage of the German Federal Foreign Office publishes information on visa requirements: http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/EN/EinreiseUndAufenthalt/StaatenlisteVisumpflicht_node.html

If you do require a visa, please be sure to indicate all necessary information (passport number, travel dates, etc.) in the boarding & lodging section of your database profile by 22 March 2013. Additionally, please send an email to Nesrin Karabag at Young Researcher Support (nesrin.karabag@lindau-nobel.org) to inform her of your visa request. She will provide you with a letter of invitation to the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting containing the personal information (full name, home address, date of birth) provided in your database profile. Therefore, please check that the information provided in your profile is absolutely correct. You will be asked to present the letter of invitation when applying for a Schengen visa at a German embassy or consulate in your country of residence.

We advise you to apply for a visa at least three months in advance of your travel.

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings provide all participants with basic medical insurance covering them for the duration of the meeting. You are, of course, free to take out any additional insurance of your own choice.

Only registered participants can participate in the meeting and any of its sessions and events. The registration desks are at the main meeting venue, called “Inselhalle”. For opening hours, please refer to the programme. You can expect the registration desk to be open on Saturday 29 June 2013, from 15.00 hrs to 18.00 hrs, and on the opening day of the meeting, Sunday 30 June 2013, from 10.00 hrs to 20.00 hrs. All participants who wish to attend the opening ceremony must register in advance – please schedule your arrival accordingly.

Upon registration, you will receive what we call a badge letter, which consists of your name badge, several vouchers, invitations, and a lot of detailed information. The information in the badge letter is personalised, so don’t lose it or give it away. Your name badge grants you access to the meeting and all its sessions and activities. It also serves as your ticket for several services, like public bus transport. Never forget it, always wear it!
The staff at the registration desk are at your disposal during the meeting and will be glad to help and assist you.

All lectures and main events take place at the meeting venue, a conference hall called “Inselhalle” in German, which means “island hall”. Besides the large auditorium, Inselhalle has several session rooms. Thus, different sessions might be taking place at Inselhalle at the same time.
Breakfast sessions, many of the afternoon sessions, and most social events take place at various locations on or just off the island of Lindau. You will find a map in your badge letter as well as in your programme. The programme will state the exact location of any event. The multitude of locations may be confusing at first. But as Lindau is a small island, you will easily be able to find all of the locations once you have spent your first day with us.

All participants get breakfast at their hotels or in their guest families. From Monday to Thursday, buffet lunch is offered in the catering tent outside the Inselhalle. Please refer to the programme to find the various events and locations for dinner.
The regular buffet lunches and dinners always provide different kinds of meat and vegetarian dishes. If you require any kind of special diet or suffer from food allergies, please let us know in advance. We will thus try to provide suitable food for you. However, if you follow very special dietary rules, you may have to organise your food yourself.

There is no kind of dress code for the sessions of the scientific programme. The general attire is casual. You may find you are overdressed if you wear a suit and tie, or a jacket and skirt. However, formal clothing is appropriate at some of the social functions and dinners. Thus, bringing along a suit or an evening dress is still a good idea.
At the Bavarian evening on Thursday, we would be delighted to see you wearing leather trousers or dirndls. But, as only a few participants are actually Bavarian, all the others might want to surprise us by wearing traditional clothes from their home countries: cowboy hats, qipaos & tangzhuangs, ponchos, saris, skirts, and so on. It’ll be great fun for everyone!

In July, the weather in the region is usually very good, with lots of sun and little rain. Temperatures are around 25 to 30 degrees Celsius – and sometimes it gets even hotter.
However, as fate would have it, the weather might even be quite the opposite: with rain, strong winds, and temperatures dropping by 10 degrees within a few hours, down to a minimum of 15 degrees Celsius. Thus, we can only advise you to be prepared for everything.

As the island of Lindau is only 0.68 square kilometres in size, you will not need any kind of transportation to get around here. Walking is the fastest way to get everywhere on time. Those participants who are accommodated on the mainland of Lindau can choose between three mobility options:

• 1) Public buses (“Stadtbus” in German): There are four lines that run every 30 minutes. They all meet at the central connection point (“ZUP”), where you can change lines. With your name badge, all rides will be free of charge for you personally. You will find a map of all bus lines among your registration documents.
• 2) Rent a bicycle.
• 3) Walk.

Regional trains connect Lindau to neighbouring cities like Friedrichshafen and Bregenz, as well as to the German, Austrian and Swiss railway networks, which are very well developed. Tourist boats connect various cities located on the lake, like Bregenz, Konstanz/Constance, Meersburg, and others.

The currency used in Germany is the euro. Participants arriving at Zurich airport should note that Zurich is in Switzerland – the currency used there is the Swiss franc (“Schweizer Franken” in German). Money can be changed at “bureaux de change” at all airports or at local banks. Credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) and Maestro/EC cards can be used to withdraw money from ATMs (“Geldautomat” in German), where you will be required to enter your PIN. However, not all local shops and restaurants accept credit cards. Cheques and Travellers Cheques have become rather uncommon and may not be accepted everywhere.

The meeting venue is equipped with wireless LAN during opening hours, and there will be a tent containing 40 computers with internet access and printers. Please check the meeting programme for further details on internet accessibility. Please note that personal laptops may not be used during lectures.
The use of mobile phones in German telephone networks requires the GSM standard, which is used all over Europe. Alternatively, you may purchase phone cards in local shops to make calls from public telephones.
Please note that some places of accommodation do not provide telephones or internet access. If they do provide telephones or internet access, they might charge you extra for their use. Therefore, please note that you will have to pay these extra costs yourself.

In case of an emergency at the “Inselhalle” meeting venue, please contact any of the staff immediately. A paramedic team is present at all times. They can help with all health-related issues. If you have an emergency at any other location, please either contact any of the staff present, or call the German emergency number “112” for help. During the meeting, you will be covered by health insurance provided by the organisers.

The programme will be available for online download about three months before the meeting starts. All participants will be notified by email. You will receive a programme booklet upon registration, so there is no need to bring along a print-out. The programme contains a special section with even more useful information.

It is tradition at the Lindau Meetings for the participating Nobel Laureates to each contribute a programme topic of their own choice. As a result, the programmes always feature a broad variety of content: this includes lectures on the significance of Nobel Prize winning research, presentations of latest research findings, talks on specialised research topics or on “science & society” issues. Some Laureates recount very personal stories or draw attention to widely neglected themes.

In general, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings make no claim to cover the latest cutting-edge research. In fact, their aspiration is to inspire young researchers, to connect them with each other, and to provide valuable insight into the scope of a scientist’s life.

The meeting programme contains several different types of sessions. Here is an overview:

Plenary sessions:

Plenary sessions are held in the large auditorium of the main “Inselhalle” venue. Mostly scheduled in the mornings, these sessions are usually lectures given by Nobel Laureates or panel discussions with Nobel Laureates involved.

• Lectures: Scheduled for 30 minutes, the lectures by Nobel Laureates can be attended by all participants of the meeting.
• Panel Discussions: Please refer to the respective programme for information on the topics and speakers of the scheduled panel discussions.

Discussion sessions:

Discussion sessions take place at various locations in the afternoons of the meeting week. They usually relate to earlier plenary sessions and put their topics up for discussion. Their focus is scientific, and they are strictly limited to Nobel Laureates and young researchers. As these discussion sessions are scheduled in parallel, participants should decide which session they wish to attend. Switching between sessions must be avoided.

Science Breakfasts:

A meeting week usually includes up to 4 science breakfasts. They start early in the morning and are mostly organised by partners of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. Due to capacity constraints, meeting participants are each invited to one of the breakfast sessions only and may not attend the others. Offering food and beverages, these breakfast sessions feature talks and discussions. Relaxing and revealing at the same time, the science breakfasts are a most welcome opportunity for young researchers to meet the invited Nobel Laureates.

Science Master Classes:

Only 5 selected young researchers each will get the opportunity to participate in one of 4 science master classes. The selected participants will be informed and instructed in advance by email.
These exclusive sessions are offered and held by Nobel Laureates. The participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss their research projects in class, and will get first-hand feedback and advice from the Nobel Laureates. The master classes will be attended by a small audience of carefully selected people.

Some sessions are open to participants “by invitation only”. This means that young researchers need to present an official invitation to attend these sessions.

How to find out if you are invited:

• You will be contacted and invited prior to the meeting, probably by email, and you will have to confirm your participation in advance.
• You may find invitations to limited sessions in your badge letter, which you receive upon registration. Please read the respective section of your badge letter and check your vouchers to look for invitations.
• Your conference bag may contain written invitations separately.

Please do not confuse the phrase “by invitation only” with the phrase “upon invitation of”. The latter merely indicates that the respective session or part of the meeting programme has been organised or supported by the institution named in the programme. Participants need not be invited to these sessions, everyone is welcome to attend.

On the last day of the meeting, all participants will receive a certificate of attendance if they hand in their completed participant surveys.

Apart from scientific sessions, the meeting programme contains the following social events:

• Sunday afternoon: the opening ceremony, a reception by the City of Lindau, a concert
• Sunday evening: a welcome buffet dinner in the catering tent
• Monday evening: the International Get-Together upon invitation of the Republic of Singapore
• Tuesday evening: several Academic Dinners (by invitation only) and the “Grill & Chill” barbecue
• Wednesday evening: to be announced
• Thursday evening: the Bavarian evening
• Friday: a full-day excursion by boat to Mainau Island

We hope to be able to launch an alumni directory before the beginning of the upcoming meeting. This online directory will allow you to easily browse through the list of all participants. Their contact details shall include links to their profiles on Facebook, ResearchGATE, or other social networks.

Alumni participants will receive newsletters, and we will keep you updated on the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings if you follow or join us on:

• Facebook: www.facebook.com/LindauNobelLaureatesMeeting
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/lindaunobel
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/NobelLaureateMeeting
• ResearchGATE: www.researchgate.net/community/lindaunobel

Videos of all lectures of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings are available online in the Lindau Mediatheque at www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org. New videos will be uploaded to the mediatheque shortly after the respective meeting.