The Frontiers Forum returned in-person to Switzerland in 2023 as a hybrid event - welcoming 550 scientists, policymakers, and innovators to Lausanne, as well as thousands more online, to advance and accelerate science-led solutions for humanity’s greatest challenges.
The exceptional speakers and panelists included former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UN Messenger of Peace Jane Goodall, former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, planetary boundary pioneer Johan Rockström, and historian, philosopher, and best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari. The event also featured the inaugural Frontiers Planet Prize ceremony - where four International Champions were awarded a total of 3 million Swiss francs to support their breakthrough work towards stabilizing the planet’s ecosystem.
2023 saw the launch of the Frontiers Forum Deep Dive series - bringing together researchers and policy specialists to discuss the next steps in diverse areas of transformational science - from organoid intelligence to warming after net zero - published in Frontiers’ flagship multidisciplinary journal, Frontiers in Science.
Finally, the Frontiers Forum Virtual Series continued with Dr Paul Behrens giving a keynote on futures from the frontiers of climate science.
The Frontiers Forum opened its virtual doors in a series of interactive webinars, which welcomed over 35,000 researchers, policy makers, and other experts from 159 countries all around the world.
The exceptional speakers and panelists included Nobel Laureates Esther Duflo, Jennifer Doudna, and Al Gore, planetary boundary pioneer Johan Rockström, European Green Deal Advisor Kurt Vandenberghe from the European Commission, Taukandjo Shikongo from the Convention on Biological Diversity, and Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization.
Over 400 guests from science, business, policy, and civil society gathered at the Fairmont le Montreux Palace, in the heart of the Swiss Riviera, to discuss data-driven insights and cutting-edge technologies for sustainable agriculture, delivering healthcare, and more.
The world-class line-up of speakers included Anna Rosling Rönnlund, co-author of the New York Times bestseller ‘Factfulness’, Bracken Darrell, CEO of Logitech, and Harvard’s David Sinclair, one of Time magazine’s ‘100 most influential people in the world’, whose revolutionary research may soon allow us to reverse aging.
As one Frontiers Chief Editor said: “Instead of being many small voices, we should work together to be one large voice of change.”
2018’s Forum expanded on the scope of previous years and set the tone for the event’s future. Experts from outside the Frontiers community were invited, with a new focus on incorporating policy and business to enable the acceleration of science-led solutions. 140 internationally acclaimed researchers, as well as representatives from the European Commission and cutting-edge startups, attended, and the speaker program grew to a full day.
The Forum started in 2015 as a weekend retreat in the Swiss Alps for around 20 Chief Editors from Frontiers’ scientific journal portfolio – all leading researchers in their fields
Participants discussed the future of academic publishing, the dissemination of knowledge, and the role that researchers and publishers play in solving global problems. The event doubled in size each subsequent year, mirroring the rapid growth in the number of Frontiers journals and Chief Editors. The theme of how research and Open Science can help create a sustainable future continued. Discussions focused on strategies for academics and publishers to facilitate interdisciplinary solutions through rapid publication of the latest knowledge as well as multi-level communication.”
