STATUTES

(June 30, 2000)

The younger generation of German academics has fewer opportunities than is desirable to participate in shaping the future autonomously and from a secure institutional platform. The agendas and structures of academic work and research are informed by the judgements of the senior generation and directions defined from their perspective. Thus, important intellectual resources remain untapped. A large proportion of exceptional academic achievements are the work of young adults. In general, however, young academics are excluded from membership of learned academies. Institutional support that is oriented toward cross- and interdisciplinary discourse is lacking for young academic elites.
The Young Academy will provide important compensation for the German academic system. It will represent a kind of age-specific pivot for the development of elites, promote flexible academic careers, and encourage mobility. It will support exceptionally high-performance younger academics while raising them from the level of individual persons and careers to a community that has experience of specialisation in common and will find its own path to dialogue. It constitutes an institutional framework where, at an early stage, the younger generation will be enabled to develop the capability for interdisciplinary discourse and a specific interest in problems across the disciplines and at the interface between science and the humanities and society. In this manner, an independent academic and political force will emerge, which will become an instrument of rational discourse between the generations and on the future of science and the humanities. The Young Academy will act, at the level of the younger generation, as a contact and as a partner for German scholarship in both national and international contexts.

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§ 1 Foundation

The Young Academy shall be founded by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina (Leopoldina) in the year 2000, when the first members shall be elected. Initially, the Young Academy will run for a ten-year period. Continuation will be decided upon by 2010 at the latest.

The Young Academy is a joint project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina. It is autonomous with regard to the content of its academic activities and organises itself under the higher responsibility of the Presidents of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina. The Young Academy is not supervised by any organ of the parent academies. Its members have the status of a “Member of the Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina”. They shall elect one of their members to be President, who shall have guest status on the executive boards of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina.

The Young Academy seeks to further the careers of the younger generation of academics. Its objectives are to promote scientific discourse and cooperation between disciplines, to carry out projects of considerable academic importance, and to support initiatives at the interface between science and society. The Young Academy is free to choose its modes and places of work.

As a principle, the number of members of the Young Academy is limited to fifty. Members are elected for a five-year period. Re-election is not possible. At the time of election, the member’s doctoral degree shall, as a rule, have been conferred no longer than three to seven years previously. The composition of the membership body shall comprise all academic disciplines and as a principle be drawn from the German-speaking countries. Membership entails the obligation to participate actively in the Young Academy.

The election of members to the Young Academy shall be carried out alternately by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina on the one hand, and by the Young Academy on the other. The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina, as well as the Young Academy, are free to choose their election procedure. Members of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Leopoldina, and the Young Academy are empowered to propose candidates. Candidates may also be sought through limited advertising. Applications by individuals are also possible. A joint presidential committee of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina will elect the first twenty members on the basis of applications received and referees’ assessments. In the following years, ten further members will be elected each year.

Each member will receive a one-off, flexible budget of DM 50,000. These funds shall, as a rule, be utilised to support joint projects, that meet the criteria of the Young Academy’s aims and objectives as described in § 3. The use of funds is subject to monitoring by the administrations of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina.

The Young Academy shall set up its own rules and regulations in agreement with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Leopoldina.

The Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina will be founded in 2000. At this point in time, the Young Academy will commence its work with the election and announcement of the first members.
It has been agreed that, ten years after its foundation at the latest, there will be a general review, analysis, and evaluation to facilitate any necessary correctives or, should it be deemed necessary, to decide upon dissolution of the Young Academy.

In accordance with the motives and intentions that led to its foundation, the Young Academy operates as an independent structure under the joint institutional umbrella of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina and falls within the responsibility of the Presidents of the two parent academies. Great importance is attached to the fact that the members of the Young Academy should be independent of the regular business of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina and free from guidelines, recommendations, and supervision, which frequently arise from the seniors’ sense of responsibility toward the younger generation. The Young Academy should pursue and organise its academic activities independently within the framework laid down in § 3. The members’ official status is “Member of the Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina”; they are not members of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and/or the Leopoldina.

With few exceptions, science and scholarship is initially the acquisition of specialist knowledge. The development of junior academics in the period between doctoral thesis and Habilitation (postdoctoral thesis) is discipline-oriented. Extensive knowledge and self-differentiation in the course of professional identity formation are hallmarks of good academic training. Although specialisation initially complicates communication between the disciplines and hinders openness towards others, it is an indispensable prerequisite for pursuing knowledge and undertaking research that transcend the boundaries of one’s own discipline. What is lost, or neglected, through specialisation must be compensated for later. Few institutions exist that have the power to provide such compensation; the academies are among them.
The Young Academy potentially provides an important institutional framework in which younger academics acquire and refine the ability to engage in interdisciplinary discourse. It is hoped that this will result in a stronger interest in cross-disciplinary themes and issues located at the interface between science and the humanities and society, faster transfer of methodology between disciplines, and a basis for greater interdisciplinary confidence and communication.
For a junior academic, membership of the Young Academy can foster the ability to think and work in interdisciplinary contexts with his or her peer generation at an early career stage. The Young Academy provides an opportunity for academics from very different fields to meet, who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to do so at such an early stage in their academic careers because of the specialised phase of their training. They can explore topics of mutual interest, develop projects, and work together - outside the immediate framework of their special field.
The Young Academy is free to choose the form of its activities. The organisation and publication of seminars, workshops, conferences, and cooperative research projects are some possibilities. Others are joint projects with other academies that are not primarily engaged in science or the humanities, such as academies of art, or with representatives of other areas of society and international partners. Whether the Young Academy collaborates with projects at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and/or Leopoldina, to what extent, and in which form, is decided upon by the members. The attitude of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina toward such cooperation and collaboration is an open one. The Young Academy’s institutional meetings take place in Berlin; for work and activities, choice of location is free.

In the context of the goal of promoting an academic elite and faster careers, the Young Academy defines a junior academic as someone who successfully completed their doctoral dissertation no more than three to seven years before election. This restriction allows for the very considerable differences in academic biographies between disciplines and, in the case of women, for starting a family. Under these circumstances, it is not possible to apply a universal criterion of a particular age for junior academics.
Members must have produced an excellent doctoral thesis and at least one distinguished work of scholarship thereafter. A Habilitation (post-doctoral thesis) is not an essential pre-requisite for election to the Young Academy.
By limiting the period of time in which election to the Young Academy is possible, the aim is to promote academic elites as early as possible. Further, it excludes the possibility of interaction of an undesirable nature with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina; for example, unsuccessful candidates of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina cannot fall back on the Young Academy nor is there automatic acceptance of Young Academy Members into the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities or the Leopoldina. This would reflect most unfavourably on the standing of the Young Academy.
The reasons for founding the Young Academy lie in the specific conditions that prevail in the German academic system. For this reason, the members elected were, in general, restricted to candidates from Germany. This has now been expanded to include the other German-speaking countries as a contribution to promoting and maintaining the status of the German language in research and scholarship. Regardless of this orientation, international relations and cooperation in the work of the Young Academy are viewed as being of primary importance and are expressly supported.
The number of members is restricted to fifty. However, as a considerable number of members were elected in the year of the Young Academy’s foundation, after five years, this number will be exceeded.

Procedures for electing members to the Young Academy need to be simple, transparent, and practical. The search for candidates must be as broad as possible; the expertise and experience of the members of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina is a resource that must be drawn upon as well as the independent verdict and assessment by members of the Young Academy. For this reason, a conscious decision was taken not to implement joint decision-making procedures or election committees composed of members of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Leopoldina, and the Young Academy. Instead, responsibility for electing new members alternates between the two sides according to agreed procedures that are independent of each other.
The right to nominate candidates lies with the members of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Leopoldina, and the Young Academy; it is planned to extend this by publishing election notices and through the possibility of independent applications by individuals.
In the case of the election of the first twenty members and for those who will be elected by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina every two years, the parent academies set up a commission composed of representatives from all Sections. The commission receives the nominations and also actively participates in finding candidates. Voting takes place according to the criteria stipulated in § 4 regarding the composition of the Young Academy. This procedure utilises the competence of the Academies’ members from the various Sections to ensure the excellence of the nominated candidates and, at the same time, it does not overburden the Academies’ organisational structures with extended and complex election procedures.
The Young Academy will decide independently on its procedures for electing new members.

The total cost of the Young Academy is estimated at one million DM per annum. This sum includes the flexible, one-off research budget of 50,000 DM for each member and the expenses for activities within the overall framework of the Young Academy. Also included is the cost of maintaining an office and personnel (salary levels BAT II and BAT V), which provide organisational support for the work of the Young Academy. The individual research budgets are funds for projects and monitoring takes place to make sure that they are used for this purpose. As the Young Academy acts as an independent structure under the joint institutional umbrella of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina, the final responsibility for the use of funds, in particular the individual research budgets, rests with the Presidents of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Leopoldina. They are responsible for the monitoring procedures.

(Translation: Gloria Custance)