European Academies Re-Elect Antonio Loprieno as ALLEA President

ALLEA Member Academies unanimously re-elected Professor Antonio Loprieno as President for the term 2021–2023. Board Members Professor Annette Grüters-Kieslich and Professor Luke Drury were appointed as ALLEA Vice-Presidents.

The elections’ results were announced today during the annual meeting of ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities. As a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the voting took place by correspondence ahead of the virtual meeting.

“I am very grateful for the trust and support from our Member Academies. It is an honour for me to serve ALLEA during these critical times, and I am looking forward to an increasingly productive dialogue between science and society, in order to carry ALLEA’s European vision and mission across borders, disciplines and societal actors”, President Loprieno said.

As representative of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, Loprieno assumed the ALLEA Presidency in May 2018 for a first three-year term. The ALLEA President serves a maximum of two consecutive terms and chairs the ALLEA Board with responsibility for strategic priorities, the overall policy direction, budgetary issues and other governance topics of the European Academies’ federation.

Following the General Assembly, the ALLEA Board convened and appointed its members Annette Grüters-Kieslich (Leopoldina / Union of German Academies) and Luke Drury (Royal Irish Academy) as ALLEA Vice-Presidents for the President’s term 2021–2023.

ALLEA’s 2021 General Assembly also featured the virtual scientific symposium ‘Across Boundaries in Sciences’, co-organised with the Council of Finnish Academies on 5 May. The event gathered leading academics, policymakers, and civil society from over 40 countries to discuss today’s position of science in society and in relation to policy, including a particular focus on interdisciplinary research and a debate on the recently released ALLEA discussion paper ‘Fact or Fake? Tackling Science Disinformation’.

Helen Keller, Laureate of the 2021 ALLEA Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values

On the occasion of ALLEA’s General Assembly, law scholar Helen Keller was announced laureate of the 2021 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. The Jury recognised Keller’s important contribution to the development and consolidation of human rights jurisprudence in Europe as well as her commitment to fundamental rights.

Helen Keller is Chair for Public Law, European and Public International Law at the University of Zurich. She is a former member of the UN Human Rights Committee and served as Judge at the European Court of Human Rights in the period of 2011-2020. In December 2020, she was appointed Judge to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The ALLEA Prize recognises researchers or intellectuals whose work represents a significant impact on the advancement of Europe. Professor Keller will deliver a Prize Lecture during a dedicated online event in the second half of 2021.