KAAD Annual Report 2019 Published – Cancellation of the Annual Convention 2020

04/15/2020 | Publikationen

In the midst of unexpectedly challenging times, also for the academic landscape and the international development policy, KAAD looks back on a successful year 2019 in its recently published annual report. KAAD was able to sponsor a total of 463 scholars from 56 countries and 62 events with 1,797 participants could take place in Germany and abroad in the past year. In 2020, even before the corona crisis in Germany worsened, we were able to conduct a number of important events, including two seminars, a larger regional meeting in Hamburg and an international convention in Lima. Even this year’s first meeting of the Academic Council could still largely take place in person which ensured us some security of planning and continuity in the midst of almost unpredictable times.

On April 1^st, PD Dr Esther Maria Guggenmos (Head of the Asia Department) and Martina May-Topalidis (Head of Administration), two new colleagues in important positions, have begun their work at KAAD.

Unfortunately, our Annual Convention at the end of April has to be cancelled due to the current government regulations for public life still valid after Easter. We have received a lot of positive feedback on the programme and choice of the topic “Power and Freedom of Language”, so consequently, we will follow up on it, possibly also by making it the topic of next year’s annual convention. As soon as the current restrictions have been eased accordingly, we will resume our educational work (seminars) and we will make all efforts to make up for the cancelled convention at least in form of an annual meeting on a smaller scale with our scholars still in 2020. All those who know the unique character of the Annual Convention will understand that there can be no “virtual” substitute for this special event…

In the meantime, there has been a vivid exchange of experiences and strategies with the pandemic within our worldwide KAAD community. So far, we haven’t heard of any serious cases in our network caused by the coronavirus. The medical expert groups are in contact with each other via video conference. An in-depth interdisciplinary reflexion of this crisis, its side effects and consequences (for the future) will lend itself to our international community when things have finally calmed down.

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