Dear Friends and Partners of Falling Walls, Berlin Science Week and Young Entrepreneurs in Science,

The Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year will highlight breakthrough thinking from around the world. Over the past months, we have received nearly 1000 nominations from around 80 countries. Renowned institutions from all continents have nominated their most valuable research institutions to make Falling Walls Remote 2020 a true call for the most innovative minds.

From 4 November until 8 November 2020, the ten winners in each category will present and discuss their scientific breakthroughs identified by our distinguished world-class juries, counting more than 100 jurors under the leadership of renowned experts in their respective fields.

We are delighted that Helga Nowotny, fmr. President of the European Research Council, will serve as the Chair of the Juries, presiding over the selection process at large.

 

Meet our distinguished Jury:

CATEGORY 01 LIFE SCIENCES
Jury Chair: Marja Makarow, Biocenter Finland
Monique Breteler, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn/University of Bonn
Susan Gasser, Friedrich Miescher Institute
Quarraisha Abdool Karim, UNAIDS Collaborating Centre for HIV Research and Policy (CAPRISA)
Segenet Kelemu, icipe
Dennis Lo, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Toivo Maimets, Tartu University Estonia
Magdalena Skipper, Springer Nature

 

CATEGORY 02 PHYSICAL SCIENCES
Jury Chair: Daniel Zajfman, Israel Science Foundation
Shep Doeleman, Event Horizon Telescope Consortium/Harvard
Fabiola Gianotti, CERN
Astrid Lambrecht, CNRS
Katja Matthes, GEOMAR
Ferdi Schüth, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Sebastian Suchitra, University of Cambridge
Joachim Ullrich, Physikalisch-Technische Bundeasanstalt
Jian Wei-Pan, University of Science and Technology of China
Qi-Kun Xue, Tsinghua University

 

CATEGORY 03 ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
Jury Chair: Joël Mesot, ETH Zurich
Frank Allgöwer, Director
Sami Haddadin, Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence/TUM
Elanor Huntington, Australian National University
Sang Yup Lee, KAIST
Lim Chuan Poh, Singapore Food Agency
Bernhard Schölkopf, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Michael Totzeck, ZEISS AG
Karin Vey, IBM Research, ThinkLab
Yoshihisa Yamamoto, NTT Research

 

CATEGORY 04 SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES
Jury Chair: Shalini Randeria, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna
Jutta Allmendinger, WZB
Dixon Chibanda, African Mental Health Research Initiative
Edgar Pieterse, University of Cape Town
Judit Sandor, Central European University
Saskia Sassen, Columbia University
Peter Strohschneider, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Till van Rahden, University of Montréal
Hui Wang, Tsinghua University

 

CATEGORY 05 SCIENCE IN THE ARTS
Jury Chair: Horst Bredekamp, Humboldt University Berlin
Julian Adenauer, Retune Festival
Judith Barry, MIT (Art, Culture and Technology)
Bettina Kames, Light Art Space
Topi Lehtipuu, Independent
Arthur Miller, University College London
Katja Naie, Schering Stiftung
Kostya Novoselov, National University Singapore
Norbert Palz, Universität der Künste Berlin
Christian Rauch, State Studio
Jochen Sandig, Radialsystem V

 

CATEGORY 06 DIGITAL EDUCATION
Jury Chair: Deborah Quazzo, GSV Ventures
Bharat Anand, Harvard University
Anna Maria, Braun B. Braun Melsungen AG
Joy Chen, TAL Education Group
Mariette DiChristina-Gerosa, College of Communication at Boston University
Monika Gross, German Rector’s Conference
Barbara Ischinger, Universität Göttingen
Julian Oei, Holtzbrinck Digital
Dominic Orr, Kiron Higher Education
Philip Regier, Arizona State University
Bror Saxberg, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Pramath Sinha. Harappa Education
Mike Smith, Harvard University
Hilligje van’t Land, International Association of Universities (IAU-AIU)
Norihisi Wada, EduLab

 

CATEGORY 07 SCIENCE AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
Jury Chair: Michael Kaschke, KIT
Kumsal Bayazit, Elsevier
Pascale Finette, Singularity University
Dietmar Harhoff, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Carolin Häussler, University Passau
Sarah Hunter, X, the moonshot factory
Marion Pötz, Copenhagen Business School/LBG Open Innovation in Science Center
Henry Sauermann, ESMT
Paula Stephan, Georgia State University
Nelson Torto, Botswana Government
Reinhilde Veugelers, University Leuven

 

CATEGORY 08 EMERGING TALENTS
Jury Chair: Claudie Haigneré, European Space Agency
Cat Allman, Google
Susanne Burger, BMBF
Muriel Helbig, DAAD
Carl-Henrik  Heldin, Chairman of the Board
John Hepburn, Mitacs
Michael Lipka, Huawei
Helen Nader, Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Marielle van Kooten, ETH Zurich
Sven Wagner, Sartorius
Neil Turok, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

 

CATEGORY 09 SCIENCE-BASED START-UPS
Jury Chair: Stefan von Holtzbrinck, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group
Gitte Bedford, Robert Bosch Venture Capital
Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio, SpaceTime Labs und Ventures
Obi Felten, X, the moonshot factory
Frank Kalkbrenner, Boehringer Ingelheim
Jui Lim, SGInnovate
Natalie Jing  Ma, Felix Biotechnology
Kreske Nickelsen, Joint Polish Investment Fund
Frank Niederländer, BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt
Hemai Parthasarathy, Thiel Foundation, Breakout Labs, Breakout Ventures
Patrick Pichette, inovia capital
Geneviève Tanguay, National Research Council Canada
Alex van Someren, Amadeus Capital Partners
Eric Zhiguo Wu, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

 

CATEGORY 10 SCIENCE ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVES
Jury Chair: Melanie Smallman, University College London
Johannes Vogel, Museum für Naturkunde
Abdulaziz Alhegelan, North Africa and Middle East Science centers network (NAMES)
Cissi Askwall, Vetenskap & Allmänhet
Darren Gilmour, The Royal Society of Canada
Julika Griem, DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Luisa Massarani, Brazilian Institute of Public Communication of Science and Technology, Oswaldo Cruz
Noni Mumba, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme
Kishoth Navaretnarajah, DreamSpace Academy
Mary Ellen O’Connell, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
Aravinth Panch, DreamSpace
Paul Richards, Australian Academy of Science
Rebecca Tan, Asian Scientist Magazine
Joanna Verran, Manchester Metropolitan University

 

You can find an overview of our entire jury at www.falling-walls.com/remote2020/jury.

In order to stay up-to-date with everything we are planning, please make sure to register for Falling Walls and Berlin Science Week: The World Science Summit at www.falling-walls.com/remote2020/register-now.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for further details:
Falling Walls Circle: Fabio Haenel
Falling Walls Communication: Lisa Wagner

All the best from your Falling Walls Team

 

ABOUT THE FALLING WALLS FOUNDATION
The Falling Walls Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Berlin. The foundation creates international and interdisciplinary platforms and networks through its annual Falling Walls Conference, which asks each year on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall: Which walls will fall next? At the conference, 20 leading researchers from around the world present their latest breakthroughs in the natural sciences, humanities, business and technology to an audience of around 700 decision-makers and innovators in politics, research, industry and civil society. The Falling Walls Foundation also organises Berlin Science Week, which bring scientists from institutions all over the world to Berlin from 1 to 10 November. A further initiative is the Young Entrepreneurs in Science programme, which trains doctoral researchers to translate their research into a potential business idea. The Falling Walls Foundation is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Berlin Senate, as well as by numerous national and international research institutions, foundations and companies. www.falling-walls.com

 

PRESS CONTACT
Falling Walls Foundation gGmbH
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10969 Berlin

phone: +49 30 60 988 39 75
fax: +49 30 60 988 39 79
press@falling-walls.com

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