Each year, the KAS Fellowship integrates an important person and their external perspective into our foundation’s work.
Integration into the Foundation’s Work
The Fellowship of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, in short KAS-Fellowship, aims at involving a person of the public with their view from the outside into the work of the foundation. The selection of experts for the Fellowship is motivated interdisciplinarily and with the intention of influencing the tasks and aims of the foundation’s projects by future-oriented, but also by admonishing voices of the society. Self-critical reflection is essential in order to do justice to our core work, the political education. To take up social change as an element of our own development is at the same time the mission and the challenge of the KAS Fellowship. In their role as KAS-Fellow, the sociologist Armin Nassehi (KAS Fellow 2021), the diplomat and security expert Christoph Heusgen (KAS Fellow 2022) and the marine researcher Antje Boetius (KAS Fellow 2023) will be followed by digital and technology expert Lars Zimmermann, starting January 2024.
KAS Fellow 2024: Lars Zimmermann
Lars Zimmermann is co-founder and board member of GovTech Campus Deutschland e.V., the world's first innovation, development and learning space for the modernization of government and administration. The federal government and the federal states are driving the Campus forward as a joint platform with the aim of developing digital innovations and technologies for the federal, state, and local governments together with the tech scene and making them available for reuse. Before founding the GovTech Campus, Lars Zimmermann worked in various founding and management positions in technology and transformation consulting and was founder and spokesman of the board of the Stiftung neue Verantwortung. Lars Zimmermann has been involved in the areas of state modernization and administrative reform for many years and has developed, initiated and implemented a large number of measures and projects in this area. As one of Germany's most innovative minds at the interface of technology, politics and social change, he will support Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in 2024 with new ideas and concepts, particularly in the areas of digitalization and administration. For Lars Zimmermann, the organization of a state is the basic prerequisite for its efficiency. Bureaucracy and administration must function, otherwise democracy will not work either. Political education plays an important role here. For Zimmermann, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung is therefore an ideal partner for ideas and experimentation. Together with the many KAS colleagues in Germany and abroad, he will develop ideas and projects in 2024 that can be used to make governance structures more modern, resilient and open to technology.
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2024, Lars Zimmermann
(only in German)
YouTube, onlinekas
Former KAS Fellows
The following overview will provide information about and video interviews on our former KAS Fellows.
2023: Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2023, Professor Antje Boetius
(only in German)
YouTube, Onlinekas
Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius is Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and Professor of Geomicrobiology at the University of Bremen. In her award-winning work, Antje Boetius deals with issues such as biodiversity, the effects of climate change, the relationship between humans and nature, and science communication. During her fellowship at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, she was particularly active in the fields of sustainability, climate protection, and innovation. With numerous lectures, panel discussions, publications, and media formats, she has been instrumental in helping the foundation to formulate new political answers to key questions about the future and to emphasize the importance of science for a democratic society. She remains an important member of the KAS-family as an immensely knowledgeable, inspiring and extraordinarily impressive personality who has brought a lot of fresh sea air into the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
2022: Prof. Dr. Christoph Heusgen
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2022, Professor Christoph Heusgen
(only in German)
YouTube, Onlinekas
Ambassador Christoph Heusgen was for many years the foreign policy advisor to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and Germany's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 2017 to 2021. As a renowned expert on German foreign and security policy, he currently holds the position of Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. During his time as a KAS-Fellow 2022, Prof. Dr. Heusgen advised and supported the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, particularly on the topic of security. This included over thirty appearances and participations in a wide variety of formats, such as the classic panel discussions and talks in coordination with the KAS foreign offices, but also podcast talks and exchanges on Twitter spaces.
2021: Prof. Dr. Armin Nassehi
Interview with our KAS Fellow 2020/2021 Professor Armin Nassehi
(only in German)
YouTube, Onlinekas
Professor Armin Nassehi holds the chair at the Institute for Sociology at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. He was born in Tübingen and grow up in Gelsenkirchen and Teheran. In Munich, he teaches and researches in the area of General Sociology and Social Theory, with a special focus on culture, politics and knowledge production. Professor Armin Nassehi is one of the leading academic voices in social discourse. He has received multiple awards for his achievements and efforts in making sociological analyses on current social problems understandable for the wider public. With this role and function, he supported the foundation for one year as the first KAS Fellow.
