Anne Röthel elected to the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony

The Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony has elected Institute director Anne Röthel to a full membership. The largest learned society for basic research in the humanities and social sciences in Lower Saxony comprises a network of researchers from all over the world into a unique body of expertise.

Founded in 1751, the academy, based in Göttingen, is the oldest continuously operating institution of its kind in Germany. Among its members have been renowned figures such as Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, Christoph Lichtenberg, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Carl Friedrich Gauß, Felix Klein, Otto Hahn, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Hund, Werner Heisenberg and Manfred Eigen.

Each year, outstanding professors in the humanities and social sciences as well as in mathematics and the natural sciences are elected to the academy. As a learned society of about 360 members, which includes both its full and corresponding membership, the academy comprises a worldwide network. Among its members have been 74 Nobel Prize winners, seven of whom are current. Full membership in the academy is limited to scholars and scientists who reside in northern Germany. Members are entitled to participate in elections and to vote on resolutions. The members also have a duty to contribute to the mission of the academy and to attend periodic meetings of the membership.

Professor Dr Anne Röthel joined the Institute as a director in 2024. After studying law and political science at the universities of Cologne and Clermont-Ferrand (now l’Université Clermont Auvergne), she habilitated at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2003. From 2004 until 2023, she was Chair of Civil Law, European Private Law, and Private International Law at Bucerius Law School. Since 2010 she has been a regular invitee to guest professorships at the Université Paris Panthéon-Assas. She has conducted research at Oxford and Kyoto. She is a member of several professional organizations including the Deutscher Juristentag, the German Section of the International Commission of Jurists, and the Working Group for Legal Studies and Contemporary History at the Academy of Science and Literature in Mainz. She is co-editor of the law journal Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht (the FamRZ).