A review of the 74th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting – our young scientists report.

Leonard Fink (AK Prof. M. Lehmann), Alexander Fuchs (AK Prof. L. Nuhn), Dorothee Schaffner (AK Prof. I. Fischer), and Lukas Dellermann (Master's student) spent an exciting and inspiring week in Lindau, further increasing their enthusiasm for chemical research.

“I found the whole atmosphere of the meeting and the energy among us young researchers simply fantastic,” said Lukas Dellermann. The meeting brought together around 600 young scientists from all over the world. “Above all, I took away a lot of personal inspiration for my future career path from the exchange with the other young scientists.”

At the conference, the Nobel Prize winners gave many lectures, some on the research topic for which they received the prize, but also on their current research or more distant topics. Leonard Fink was particularly impressed by the discussion round ‘Overcoming Barriers to Success for Early-Career Scientists – an International Approach’. Here, he was able to exchange ideas with other young scientists about the diverse topics and hurdles they are dealing with. He was made aware of “personal, as yet unknown problems” and his “eye for his own challenges and complications [was] sharpened, enabling him to place them in a global context.”

The more informal programme items, such as the Laureate Lunches and Science Walks, were also quite inspiring. These involved small groups of around ten young scientists engaging in personal exchanges with a Nobel Prize winner. This provided an opportunity to learn more about the laureates' careers, but also to address specific topics such as effective presentations or taking on leadership responsibilities in a large research group. As Dorothee Schaffner noted, "the people behind the research are at least as exciting as their research."

Alexander Fuchs summed it up quite well: "The most interesting and impressive conference I have ever been to."