Munich

The future of Berlin's prestigious Dahlem Conferences is hanging in the balance this week, as members of their scientific advisory board contemplate how to end a stalemate with the Free University, which administrates the meetings.

The 12-strong board of international scientists believes that the university is trying to muscle in on the reputation of the conferences to promote itself within the highly competitive German university system.

According to its chair, Randolf Menzel, a neurobiologist at the Free University, some board members now want to resign. But he says he still hopes that the board can resolve its differences with the university.

Dieter Lenzen, president of the Free University, told Nature that the university remains committed to the conferences, and does not want to change the way they are run.

The Dahlem Conferences were established in 1974 in West Berlin as part of a general plan to make the city — isolated in the former East Germany — more attractive to key international players in all areas of society.

For each meeting, a ‘hot’ scientific problem is selected by the advisory board, along with 40 or so participants, who break into groups to discuss four key questions related to the topic. Ninety-five meetings have been held so far, each followed by a publication.

After German reunification in 1990, Berlin lost its generous federal subsidies and the Free University had to find money for the conferences from its own budget. At the same time that budget was cut drastically — more than two-thirds of tenured academic positions have since disappeared. Last year, an International Advisory Committee (IAC) of investors and scientists was created to help raise additional funds.

But tensions soon arose between the IAC and the scientific advisory board. Norbert Baer, a member of the science board and a conservation expert at New York University, says that there are numerous examples of the Free University's administration interfering in the board's work. “Even the creation of the IAC without consulting us was an infringement of our role,” he says.

A crisis point came when the Free University sacked the Dahlem Conferences series editor Julia Lupp last November, without consulting the board. Negotiations to try to get her reinstated failed last week.

“I think the Dahlem conferences have been so seriously compromised that they should be removed from the caretaking of the Free University and run with other scientific organizations in Berlin,” Baer says.

Members of the scientific board meet on 4 February to consider their next move.