The Mercator Science-Policy Fellowship-Programme is entering the third round. Once again, the Rhine-Main universities hosted leaders from politics, administration, the media and the non-profit sector to promote a structured exchange between science and do justice to the needs of decision-makers in various politico-administrative and socially relevant positions. The interests of the Fellows, newly admitted in 2018, ranged from digitization to artificial intelligence, from questions on the German party system to cooperation and development, education, arts and cultural mediation, mobility, the future of work, new trends in the life sciences and media and communication.

In the third year, the Fellowship-Programme has established itself as a form of dialogue between science and the policy sector at the Rhine-Main universities that is unique within Germany and which benefits both sides: The executives receive new scientific perspectives on their work areas, and the scientists involved in the three research-intense universities learn more about the practice and thus gain important impulses for their own work.