Aart De Geus joins the Executive Board

The Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees appoints Aart Jan De Geus, deputy secretary-general of the OECD, to the Executive Board, effective September 1, 2011. De Geus served as the Netherlands' minister of social affairs and employment from July 2002 to February 2007.


Prof. Werner J. Bauer becomes chair of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees

Prof. Werner J. Bauer is appointed chairman of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees. The executive vice president of Nestlé AG has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 2003 and has long been involved with the Stiftung.


1st Reinhard Mohn Prize awarded on the topic of "Vitalizing democracy through participation"

The Bertelsmann Stiftung awards the Reinhard Mohn Prize to recognize innovative concepts and exemplary approaches to solving social and political issues and conducts a global search for interesting models. The prize, which is bestowed under this name for the first time in 2011, honors the memory of the Bertelsmann Stiftung's founder Reinhard Mohn, who passed away in October 2009. The Reinhard Mohn Prize's predecessor was the Carl Bertelsmann Prize, which was awarded from 1988 to 2008 in memory of Carl Bertelsmann, the founder of the Bertelsmann publishing house. The Bertelsmann Stiftung presents this prize to the Brazilian port city of Recife – a model of civic participation – and to the citizens of  Recife, for whom participation has opened up entirely new perspectives. Recife, a city of 1.5 million located in the northeastern corner of Brazil, has been including its citizens in the budgeting process since 2001 using a model of participatory budgeting that was developed in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in the late 1980s. The idea, which has won recognition from the United Nations, has since been adopted by some 70 Brazilian communities as well as several cities in Europe, North America and New Zealand. Every year more than 100,000 of Recife's citizens help to decide what will happen in their neighborhoods – which streets will be repaired, where schools will be built and which sewers will be cleaned.


2011 NEUE STIMMEN International Singing Competition

In the spring of 2011, applications to participate in the 14th NEUE STIMMEN International Singing Competition arrived from 1,422 singers in 68 countries – the highest number since the project began. Between April and August, more than 1,000 young singers take the opportunity to demonstrate their talent in one of 23 preliminary auditions held worldwide. Of these, 41 qualify for the week-long final round in Gütersloh. Chaired by Dominique Meyer, director of the Vienna State Opera, the jury identifies six prize winners.  Shortly thereafter, she made her professional debut in a sold-out concert at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. The final concert in the Gütersloh town hall is also broadcast in the theater and streamed live on the Internet for the first time.


Healthcare fact check – Initiative for high-quality healthcare

Medical care in Germany varies, depending in part on where a patient lives, as illustrated in new Internet portal www.faktencheck-gesundheit.de. Visitors to the site can access information about differences in healthcare between various cities or rural districts, using an interactive map of Germany. The site covers 16 common areas of treatment. "With Healthcare Fact Check, people can find out about specific aspects of healthcare in their own regions," says Dr. Brigitte Mohn, member of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Executive Board. Healthcare Fact Check covers common operations such as Caesarean sections, tonsillectomies and appendectomies as well as non-surgical interventions, such as in-hospital treatment of diabetes and depression. The Bertelsmann Stiftung will be publishing reports that present a more detailed picture of these regional differences and explain the reasons behind them. The first report published is the fact check "Antibiotika-Verordnungen bei Kindern" (Prescribing antibiotics to children). Others follow in 2012.


Tenth Salzburg Trilogue "New foundations for the world economy and global governance"

New approaches are urgently needed for managing the world economy, with its conflicting interests, systemic risks, and social and environmental costs. Structural reforms within existing institutions – although discussed the most – are not enough. Reform must make visible the priorities that the global economy should address and identify the rules with which conflicts between actors and interests at a global level can be resolved. One key step towards creating a world economy less susceptible to crisis would be a charter for sustainable economic activity, worked out between Western and non-Western players, written in easily understandable language that describes which economic, environmental and social goals should be achieved globally and the political measures needed to achieve them. The 10th Salzburg Trilogue, which took place from August 18-20, 2011, brought together 29 experts from 16 countries to examine current challenges relating to global governance.