Since 1999, the Hubert Burda Foundation has been identifying key future topics in the fields of science, culture, art, media, healthcare and international understanding and bringing them to the public.
This particularly applies to the Felix Burda Foundation, which has been promoting colon cancer prevention since 2001. One major part of this work is the annual campaign supported by all German media companies and many celebrities. Colon Cancer Month (March) has been established as a key “brand”; at the end of the month, the Felix Burda Award is presented to people, organisations and companies that have shown particular commitment to preventing colorectal cancer. The foundation uses “Fascination Colon”, Europe’s largest accessible model colon, to make the topic of colorectal cancer tangible for visitors. And these activities have proven successful: 1,000 fewer people are dying of colorectal cancer each year.
The Burda Academy of the Third Millennium focuses on the dialogue between cultures and between the sciences, humanities and arts. It has tackled many forward-looking topics at interdisciplinary conferences and concentrates in particular on the social impact of new technologies.
The Center for Innovative Communications was set up at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva to facilitate German/Israeli exchange between media scholars, companies and politicians. The “Cool People in the Hot Desert” conference was one key forum.
The foundation continues to support the European Translators Award, which is presented together with the City of Offenburg to outstanding German linguists. With the Petrarca Award, presented for the last time in 2014, Hubert Burda and the jury combined an annual award for European literature with a poetry festival. The Hubert Burda Award for new European poetry honoured new, previously unheard voices from Eastern Europe.
The medal for the Senator Ehrenamtspreis ("Senator Volunteering Award")
Peter Handke, jury member for the Hermann Lenz Prize, which was awarded from 1999 to 2009 in memory of the writer Hermann Lenz in the locales of his works. It succeeded the Petrarca Prize, endowed by Hubert Burda from 1975–1995.
On 23 June 2012, Hubert Burda and the jury presented the Petrarca Prize to Kito Lorenc and Miodrag Pavlovic in Marbach.
Logo of the Offenburg European Translators Award
Steffi Czerny with the winners of the Hubert Burda Prize for innovation projects at Ben-Gurion University in Israel in 2008
The public lecture series “Iconic Turn – The new image of the world” has been taking place at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich since the 2002 summer semester. It promotes interdisciplinary discourse about the importance of images in today’s world. Since the 2004/2005 winter semester, an interdisciplinary colloquium has also been held on the topic of image studies that continues at LMU to this day.
Attendees at the “Internet and Politics. The Modernisation of Democracy Through Electronic Media” conference, held from 19–21 February 1997 by the Burda Academy of the Third Millennium in collaboration with the Bavarian state chancellery and the European Commission at the European Patent Office in Munich.
