A high-ranking jury of experts selected 25 up-and-coming scientists out of 757 applications from over 104 countries. The 25 awardees will be honoured during a festive award ceremony at the Green Talents Alumni Meeting 2016 to be held on October 27, 2016 at Kosmos, Berlin. The event will be graced by representatives of the participating institutions, their experts, jury members, politicians and other distinguished guests. German research minister Professor Johanna Wanka will open the conference; Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, will hold a keynote speech on “Climate effects and vulnerability.”
The award comprises the “Green Talents – International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development” where the awardees travel through Germany for two weeks, to visit hotspots of Green Science and to meet the sustainability research elite. In the following year, the Green Talents have the opportunity to conduct research in Germany for up to three months.

The Green Talents Award held under the patronage of Prof. Wanka recognises young talented researchers for the eighth time and provides a platform to share their innovative and creative ideas which aim to answer pressing sustainability and environmental protection questions of our time. This year’s “Green Talents” can expect to interact with leading experts and some of the most renowned research institutions and companies, including the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Hamburg University of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Siemens AG and the Southern African Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management.

India’s ‘Smart City’ project, and other recent initiatives established to form a sustainable region involving citizens, also focuses on aspects such as environmental and other green initiatives which has been a priority since the Urban Renewal Mission Plan.

Shamik Chowdhury (29), an Indian PhD student in Environmental Engineering from the National University of Singapore is also one of the Green Talents attending the awards ceremony. His specialisation area, ‘Green synthesis of Graphene Structures’, to provide innovative societal solutions for a sustainable development platform, impressed the jury.

The conference’s highly diversified programme offers all of its participants countless networking possibilities. During the conference, Green Talents can get connected to the science community and exchange ideas with key innovators and lay the foundations for future cooperation. Such efforts are supported by the invitation to return to Germany for a fully funded research stay at an institution of the Green Talent’s choice in the year following the award.