Die Ostsee als Brücke, Tallinn 2-4 September 2010
Die Ostsee als Brücke
A Regional Humboldt-Kolleg jointly organised by the Estonian and Finnish Humboldt Clubs
Tallinn, 2-4 September 2010
With the financial support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Finnish Humboldt Club
The central idea of the colloquium was to use the metaphor of the Baltic Sea bridging different nations and countries, not only in terms of classical traffic connections but specifically in terms of linking and synchronising their thinking, to strengthen the bridge between Humboldtians in the north-eastern section of this water body, and to create new connections between the Humboldt family and the new generation of researchers in this region, also by advertising the Humboldt Foundation’s fellowships among this group.
Organisers
The event was the first joint Estonian-Finnish Humboldt Colloquium, including also the annual meeting of the Estonian Humboldt Club. The organisational leaders were the Secretary of the Estonian club, Prof. Dr. Tarmo Soomere from the Estonian side and the President of the Finnish Club, Prof. Dr. Outi Merisalo from the Finnish side. Based on the experience of the two Finnish-Estonian Humboldt Colloquia organised by the Finnish Club in 2007 and 2009, it was expected that bringing together the members and not only the leaders of the two clubs would again result in an event of intense exchange of knowledge, experience and opinions, from which the members of both clubs would benefit. Moreover, we wished to create an even more outreaching event by using the existing tight cooperation between the Finnish Humboldt Club and the Association Humboldt France. This dimension, realised through three French participants (one of them a post-doc researcher at the University of Tartu in Estonia) was expected to serve as an important signal concerning the potential of cross-border cooperation of Humboldtians.
Most of the general organisation, starting from the initial planning of the event since 2008, design of the general layout of scientific event, formulation of the concept, identification of key topics and finding the relevant speakers, was performed in very tight cooperation between the Estonian and Finnish Humboldt Clubs, which substantially contributed to the smooth run of the preparations and the event itself. In addition, Prof. Dr. Jüri Engelbrecht (President of the Estonian club), Prof. Dr. Peeter Järvelaid and Dr. Ewald Quak substantially contributed to the organisation of the event. Five young scientists from the Institute of Cybernetics acted as technical staff during the final preparation and the running the event. From the very beginning of the practical preparations in early 2010, the German Embassy in Estonia and the new German Ambassador Dr. Martin Hanz gave their strong support to this event. The organisers are particularly thankful to Ms Aili Rehbein and Dr. Sabine Feyertag from the German Embassy in Estonia for their contribution to the event. Other generous cotributors were the Estonian Academy of Sciences as well as the Institute of Cybernetics, Tallinn. The colloquium was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Club Finnland.
The Kolleg was crowned by a visit the German-Baltic manor of Palmse (German Palms), formerly of the family von Pahlen, situated in the National Park of Lahemaa.
The main building (left) and the winter garden (right).