From Tuesday, 12 October, until Friday, 14 October 2022, several delegates from Lower Saxony as well as members of the ECAS team travelled to Scotland to meet with representatives from the universities of St Andrews, Stirling, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. In addition, the delegation had the opportunity to engage with new and departing beneficiaries of the Lower Saxony – Scotland Tandem Fellowship Programme, who respectively presented their projects and reported on the experiences with the completed fellowships.
Alongside Dr Björn Thümler (Minister for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and Deputy Member of the Federal Council for Lower Saxony), Dr Georg Schütte (Secretary General and Deputy Chairman of the Volkswagen Foundation) and Dr Marcus Beiner (Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony), the following distinguished guests participated in the visit as well: Prof. Susanne Menzel-Riedl (President of the University of Osnabrück) and Prof Manfred Krafczyk (Vice President for Digitalization and Sustainability at the TU Braunschweig). Whereas the European Centre for Advanced Studies was represented by its two Academic Directors, Prof. Jörg Philipp Terhechte and Prof. James Conroy, and the Managing Director Christoph Kleineberg.
The aim of the delegation was to reflect on the history of successful and diverse collaboration between Lower Saxony and Scotland thus far, and subsequently to look ahead to what continues to be a promising bilateral academic and political future. As a result of the visit, several scenarios for various forms of forthcoming cooperation were developed, including introducing more events focused on facilitating joint international research, as well as strengthening of existing significant projects between the two regions.
The delegation visit was a successful event, as the excellent cooperation prospects and important academic objectives of both Lower Saxony and Scotland continue to be further enhanced by the European Centre for Advanced Studies.