Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2023

How to Restart Science in Ukraine after the Russian Aggression?

Georg Schütte, Heide Ahrens, Julia von Blumenthal, Oleksiy Kolezhuk, Liubov Poshyvailo-Strube, Paweł Rowiński

2022 Circle

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army on February 24, 2022 marked a turning point in contemporary history. The ongoing war has negatively impacted scientific initiatives in the Ukraine, since many Ukrainian scientists were unable to continue their research or had to flee the country.
This session aims to discuss how the international community can support science in the Ukraine and what role it can play in the process of rebuilding the research landscape of Ukraine.

Preparation of the event is supported by Volkswagen Foundation.

Georg Schütte

Volkswagen Stiftung

Since 1 January 2020, Dr. Georg Schütte has been Secretary General of the Volkswagen Foundation. Prior to this, he served as State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for ten years and, among others, led the negotiations between the Federal Government and the German Länder on the future financing of the German research system. Dr. Schütte was born in Rheine, Germany, in 1962 and holds a doctoral degree in media and communication research from the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany, as well as a Masters Degree of the City University of New York, USA. He conducted research at Harvard University and at the University of Siegen. Before he entered government service, Georg Schütte was Secretary General of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He has worked in research and foundation management for more than 25 years.

Heide Ahrens

Dr. Heide Ahrens is Secretary General of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) since October 2020. Since 1995, she has held various positions in research funding, management and policy in Germany. From 2017 to September 2020 she headed the Science Department at the Senator for Science and Ports of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen.

Philipp Plum/HU

Julia von Blumenthal

Julia von Blumenthal is president of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since October 1st 2022. She received her degree in political science, international law and Russian literature from Hamburg University and her doctoral degree (2001) as well as her Habilitation (2007) in political science from the University of the Federal Armed Forces (today: Helmut-Schmidt-University) in Hamburg. Between 2007 and 2009 she held temporary professorships at the universities in Lüneburg and Gießen. Julia von Blumenthal has been a Professor of German Politics at the Department of Social Sciences of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since 2009. In 2014, she became Founding Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. From October 2018 to October 2022 she was President of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). As a political scientist she has conducted research on German politics, especially on federalism and parliaments and on the role of higher education institutions for the integration of refugees.

Oleksiy Kolezhuk

Oleksiy Kolezhuk is a theoretical physicist. After research stays at University of Hannover, Harvard University, and RWTH Aachen, in 2009 he became a professor at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in the newly founded Institute of High Technologies, and a researcher at the Institute of Magnetism in Kyiv. He was elected corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2021. A member (since 2021 the chairman) of the Scientific Committee of the National Council of Ukraine on Science and Technology Development. Currently at JGU Mainz as a Philipp Schwartz Fellow.

Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH / Ralf-Uwe Limbach

Liubov Poshyvailo-Strube

Liubov is a Ukrainian physicist and climate researcher. She got her Dr. rer. nat. in 2020 (University of Wuppertal; FZJ) and was also an exchange visitor at Princeton University. She was selected as a Mars Fellow for the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and took part in the discussion of the Lindau Guidelines. As a PostDoc at FZJ, she modelled climate in Europe. In 2021, she got in the “30 under 30” from the Ukrainian World Congress. From April 2022, she coordinates a volunteer team of the Ukrainian Global University (UGU) initiative and holds negotiation meetings with UGU partners.

Paweł Rowiński

Paweł Rowiński holds a degree in mathematics by the University of Warsaw, and doctoral and habilitation degrees in earth sciences with a specialisation in geophysics by the Institute of Geophysics, PAS. Among others, his research interests include mathematical methods in geophysics, geophysical flows, river hydrodynamics, and fluvial hydraulics. In 2022 he was elected Chair of the Europe Division Leadership Team of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research IAHR. Since May 2015, he serves as Vice-President of the PAS (second term in office).

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