Grußwort

Dear Helen, dear all,

I would like to welcome you all very warmly to this online award ceremony of the Meyer Struckmann Prize 2020!

I am particularly pleased that the President of Heinrich Heine University, Prof. Anja Steinbeck, is here today. And I am no less pleased about the participation of

Member of the University Council Bauschke-Hartung, dear Ricarda!

Vice President Marschall, dear Stefan!

Vice President Mauve, dear Martin!

Equal Opportunities Officer of the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf Anja Vervoorts,

President of the Robert-Schumann-Conservatory Düsseldorf Volker Kalisch,

Vice Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Skrandies, dear Timo!

Director of CAIS Michael Baurmann,

Ladies and gentlemen!

And especially, dear Professor Margetts, dear Helen,

please, let me tell you what I’m NOT going to do tonight.

First of all, I will not be speaking for very long. I promise, I'll keep this short.

Secondly, I will not speak at length about our laureate, although there is a lot to say about Helen Margetts. It is certainly no exaggeration to point out that she is one of the world's outstanding scholar in the field of digital governance, that she has dealt with the relationship of the internet and society in a very visible way on an international level, and that she is one of the leading researchers in the field of digital transformations and political decision-making processes. But I don't want to say anything more now about Helen Margetts’ merits, because Prof. Baurmann will be able to do that in much more detail and - above all - much more competently.

Thirdly, I will not give any of the speeches typical of Covid-19 times – which are, of course, fully understandable. I could now wordily regret in the subjunctive what could have been possible in the context of this ceremony - if, yes, if we weren’t living under the conditions of a pandemic, and so on and so forth.

I would rather not do that. Instead, I’m happy, without any subjunctive, that we can award the Meyer Struckmann Prize to Helen Margetts today!

And I would like to make two points from the perspective of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Firstly, it is always a great honour and pleasure for us to be able to award the Meyer Struckmann Prize. It gives us a wonderful opportunity to draw attention to the research topics of our Faculty - and even more importantly: to be able to honour renowned researchers and scholars for their life's work.

Secondly, the connection between digital transformations and democracy is a research focus, which is of great importance to our faculty - and I may also say that it plays an important role for our entire university. There are numerous researchers and research groups within the faculty who are working on questions of how our political and social lives change under the conditions of digital transformation - and it is therefore no coincidence that the Meyer Struckmann Prize 2020 has been awarded with this thematic focus.

I would therefore like to conclude by thanking everyone who contributed to the success of this certainly unusual event. I would like to thank our President, Prof. Anja Steinbeck, and Prof. Baurmann for their willingness to speak tonight. I would especially like to thank Martina Huiras, who this year once again, has made this award ceremony possible by organising this evening.

But above all, dear Helen, I would like to offer you my heartfelt congratulations on receiving the Meyer Struckmann Prize 2020.