As much as the Covid-19 crisis restricts personal gatherings in 2020, it opens up a new opportunity for Falling Walls to overcome the limitations of a traditional conference through innovative, open and engaging digital formats (Never waste a crisis!). This year, we will shift from a series of meetings and one conference with a limited number of speakers and topics to a global showcase that gathers, celebrates and discusses a much broader set of the most recent breakthroughs in science and society – The Falling Walls Breakthroughs of the Year. We also want to contribute to the post-corona agenda through dedicated sessions. This year, we will not be taking all of your time for a couple of days, including travel, but rather share thrilling research for a few minutes per day over several weeks, with a global digital meeting on 9 November.

To highlight breakthrough thinking from all over the world, we call for your nominations for the most recent breakthroughs in ten categories, from life sciences to science management. We are delighted that Helga Nowotny (Former President of the European Research Council) will serve as overall chair of the juries. Moreover, we are honoured that our long-term partners “Springer Nature” and the “Zeit Verlagsgruppe” will support this challenge.