Heidelberg Laureates Forum opportunity

The Klaus Tschira Foundation and the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies approached ACM, the International Mathematics Union, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters with a proposal for a forum modeled after the Lindau Forum for Nobel Laureates and young researchers.  The new forum will focus on computer science and mathematics and bring together winners of the Turing Award, the Abel Prize, and the Fields Medal to meet with ~100+ young researchers for a week in Heidelberg, Germany.   After several discussions, and endorsement from almost all ACM Turing Award winners, ACM agreed to join with the above organizations as well as the Mathematisches Forschungszentrum Oberwolfach and the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics to create the “Heidelberg Laureates Forum” (http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/).

The Heidelberg Laureates Forum will be held for one week each September in Heidelberg, Germany.  The focus will alternate between computer science one year and mathematics the next.  The first Forum will be held September 22-27, 2013.  For this first forum, the focus will be both computer science and mathematics.

More specifically, the goal of the first Forum is to bring together ~100+ young researchers (i.e., recent PhDs, graduate students, and possibly undergraduates with good research experience) to spend a week learning from – and working with – Turing, Abel, and Fields laureates.  To date several winners of the Turing Award, Abel Prize, and Fields Medal have indicated they will participate.

To be considered for the Heidelberg Forum, young researchers can either apply directly https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/intern/reg_registration_for.php or be nominated by a colleague (or professor or mentor  or manager) who can attest to the quality of their work. Nominations will likely carry a bit more weight within the selection process and can be made at https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/intern/reg_nom_registration_for.php but require ACM-specific credentials.

If you would like to make a nomination, please contact me. If there are more than a few nominations, the SIG will talk with the ACM about the need for selecting from them. This will be an extremely selective process. It would be wonderful to have a SIGIR-related student (or recent graduate) represented.