Annual-Report-2024 - Flipbook - Page 116
Farewell to Vice President Wolfgang Lubitz
Contributing to the Careers
of 12,000 Young Scientists
With the autumn 2024 Council Meeting, Professor Wolfgang Lubitz’ Council membership and tenure as Vice President came to an end. On the occasion of his farewell,
all remaining members of the Council expressed their gratitude for his support over a
time span of two decades and 20 Meetings in the natural sciences.
The location chosen to honour Wolfgang Lubitz was appropriate: Countess Bettina and Count Björn Bernadotte
welcomed the Council Members for a reception at
Mainau Palace. While Countess Bettina regretted the end
of Wolfgang Lubitz’ roles as Vice President, Member of
the Council, and Scientific Chairperson, she expressed her
gratitude that he had offered his help in the future in the
case of need. “The ties to his successors as Scientific Chairs
in Chemistry have been firmly established”, she emphasized: Professors Valeria Nicolosi, Trinity College Dublin,
and Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede, Chalmers University of
Technology in Gothenburg.
Looking back on their joint time on the Council, she
pointed to his role as a vivid example of how the Lindau
Meetings evolved: with him coming into office, the idea
had materialized that each Lindau scientific discipline
should be represented by Council Members both from
Sweden and other countries, Germany in this case, and
that these Council Members work on the scientific conferences together.
Wolfgang Lubitz joined the Council in 2004, 20 years
ago. In 2014, he became Vice President, taking on even
more duties. In his words of thanks, he expressed
gratitude to Count Lennart Bernadotte and Countess
Sonja whom he remembered from his first years connected with Lindau.
He derived great satisfaction from his work and saw
himself as privileged to continuously learn from other
Council Members, Nobel Laureates, and Young Scientists
114 | Lindau Institutions
alike. Lubitz had calculated that the number of early career
scientists who were invited to Lindau under his auspices
came to about 12,000 – “quite a number”, in fact representing one third of all documented Lindau Alumni. “They
made their career also thanks to the Lindau Meetings.”
During his term in office, Benjamin List received the
2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This must have been a
special moment for Lubitz as the two were practically
neighbours at their institutes in Mülheim/Ruhr. The fact
that the newly awarded Laureate found his way to Lindau
already the following year may well have been due to
Lubitz’ gentle prodding.
In his closing remarks, Lubitz repeated his gratitude
for being allowed to be part of the Lindau community.
In reviewing the evolution of the Meetings and their increasing focus and professionalization, he also left his listeners in no doubt that the current Members of the Council were ideally placed to continue this positive trajectory.
The gathering was also a good opportunity to welcome Thomas Perlmann, Secretary of the Nobel Assembly
at Karolinska Institutet and of the Nobel Committee for
Physiology or Medicine, to the Lindau Council, where the
Meetings in Physiology and Medicine will benefit from
his expertise. In summing up, Countess Bettina remarked,
“I am grateful for those who newly join us as well as for
those who move on, united in the Lindau Nobel Laureate
Meetings, bringing together wonderful people from different fields, different generations, and different parts of
the world.”
