Sincerest thanks and a fond farewell to Professor Sierd Cloetingh

AE Cardiff congratulates and thanks Professor Sierd Cloetingh who will complete his term as President of Academia Europaea on 31^st December, having served the Academy for 7 years.

To mark the end of his tremendous presidency, Professor Cloetingh delivered his Valedictory Presidential Lecture at the Hungarian Academy of Science in Budapest in a session chaired by the Hungarian Academy’s President, Professor Tamas Freund MAE. Members of the Academia Europaea Board of Trustees and distinguished guests were in attendance. The lecture was also followed online by many members of Academia Europaea.

He also took the opportunity to acknowledge exceptional service to the Academy by giving the Presidents Merit award to the following individuals:

Theo D’Haen (Leuven)
Ricard Guerrero (Barcelona)
Kasia Majkowska (Wroclaw)
Jerzy Langer (Wroclaw)
Louise Edwards (Cardiff)
Teresa McGovern (London)
Dana Kaiser (Graz)
Helmut Leitner (Graz)
Robert Hoffman (Graz)
Hermann Maurer (Graz)
Jan Vaagen (Bergen)
Laszlo Csernai (Bergen)
Dag Rune Olsen (Bergen)
Enric Banda (Barcelona)
Erik de Corte (associated with HERCuLES group)
Lars Engwall (associated with HERCuLES group)
Cinzia Ferrini (Trieste)
Svend Erik Larsen (Aarhus)
Balazs Gyulas (Singapore)

In his farewell message to the AE membership, Professor Cloetingh said,

“Presidents come and presidents go. That is what should happen. I would like to thank the Boards that I have been chairing throughout my Presidency, for their collective engagement, pro-active attitude, confidence, inspiration and above all friendship.
I will stay with the Academy as an enthusiastic member and I am very pleased that the Board has asked me to take on next year the chairmanship of the Advisory Board of our Academy, composed of Helga Nowotny, Robert-Jan Smits, Andreu Mas-Colell, Rolf Heuer and Carl-Hendrik Heldin.
Finally, I must thank all of you, members and colleagues, for your friendship and commitment to the mission of our Academy.”

He also acknowledged the work of the Cardiff Hub team,

“I am very pleased that our hub in Cardiff under the leadership of Vice-President Ole Petersen, assisted by Louise Edwards and Juliet Davies, is making such a great contribution to our successful functioning in SAPEA.”

Under Professor Cloetingh’s leadership, a major breakthrough has been AE’s involvement in the Scientific Advice Mechanism to the European Commission, working closely together with the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the Commission. Academia Europaea is a member of the SAPEA consortium (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies). During his presidency, Professor Cloetingh also established four more Academia Europaea hubs in Cardiff, Tbilisi, Budapest and Munich.

From all at the AE Cardiff Hub, we thank Sierd for his support and we look forward to welcoming Professor Marja Makarow as new President of the Academia Europaea on 1st January 2022.

About Professor Sierd Cloetingh MAE

Sierd Cloetingh is a Distinguished Professor at Utrecht University. He was elected President of Academia Europaea in July 2014.

Professor Cloetingh was a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council from 2009-2015 and Vice-President from 2014-2015. He served as President of the Association for European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) from 2017-2019.

Professor Cloetingh is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Foreign Member of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, the Heidelberg Academy, the Bavarian Academy and the German Academy for Technical Sciences, acatech. He is also an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.