If I had to explain the Robert Bosch Academy in a single image, I would not begin with fellowships, lectures, or seminars. I would begin with a grove outside Athens.

The Akademia of ancient Greece, as our Fellow, the curator and philosopher Vasyl Cherepanyn, recently reminded me, was originally not an institution, but a place: a grove named after the mythical hero Akademos, where Plato and his companions came together. What emerged there was less a school in the modern sense than a community for reflection and intellectual exploration. Collectively and often controversially, they examined questions of politics, ethics, truth, and the ordering of society.

More than two millennia later, this understanding of an academy, reflected in various traditions of inquiry across time and space, still resonates with me. Indeed, it may be one of the best ways to understand the Robert Bosch Academy.

At its core, the Academy is a space for thinking together. Through fellowships, lectures, workshops, and countless conversations, we bring together people from different countries, professions, and life experiences. We do so because many of the questions that concern us – questions of democracy, technology, conflict, migration, climate, or social cohesion – transcend national and disciplinary borders. They cannot be addressed from a single perspective. They require intellectual openness, curiosity, and a willingness to engage seriously with people whose experiences and viewpoints differ from our own.

Our motto, Space to Think. Reason to Act., reflects a conviction at the heart of the Academy: that thinking is itself a form of engagement with the world. Thought and action are not separate spheres. Good judgement depends on reflection, just as reflection gains significance when it informs action. The motto also points to a second meaning of reason: not merely a motive for action, but our capacity to make sense of a complex world.

The Academy therefore understands conversations as more than an exchange of opinions. Conversations are a way of thinking. They enable us to test assumptions, refine ideas, and encounter perspectives that challenge our own. Often, they do not produce immediate answers. Their value lies elsewhere.

It lies in recognizing when old answers no longer suffice. A thought I often return to comes from the tradition of Critical Theory, one that the philosopher Eva von Redecker recently reminded us of: truth carries a temporal core. Ideas, concepts, and answers derive their significance from how they respond to the conditions of their time and whether they can help us make sense of a changing world. As circumstances shift, familiar answers may lose their force. And so, we find ourselves returning, again and again, to a simple question: What is the next question to be asked?

Whereas public debate is often organized around questions that are already visible, the Academy is equally concerned with those that are only beginning to emerge: developments whose significance is not yet fully apparent, assumptions that no longer hold, and challenges for which we have not yet found an adequate language.

One of the challenges of our time is that acceleration, complexity, and the demand for immediate responsiveness can gradually narrow our sense of what is possible. We become preoccupied with managing the present and lose sight of alternative futures. Intellectual freedom matters because it keeps open the possibility that things might be otherwise.

This requires time, openness, and a willingness to move beyond established ways of thinking. It calls not only for intellectual curiosity, but also for intellectual courage. Such freedom should never be taken for granted.

The Academy seeks to preserve that sense of possibility. In a world increasingly shaped by immediacy, it creates conditions in which reflection, independent judgement, and intellectual exploration can flourish. In an atmosphere of trust, Fellows and guests are encouraged to engage with uncertainty, explore contradictions, and remain open to what is not yet fully understood.

This freedom is a privilege. It is also a responsibility.
In this sense, the Academy is a place where intellectual freedom is joined with a commitment to the public good, where questions are pursued not for their own sake alone, but because how we understand the world shapes how we act within it.

I invite you to join the conversation.