The world’s democracies remain under pressure. The Bertelsmann Stiftung is therefore developing dialogue platforms across all areas of society and bringing together thought leaders worldwide from the political, business, academic and social arenas. It is also focusing on pioneering activities for refugee teachers and data analysis. Those are the developments announced by the Executive Board in its outlook for 2020. 

This year's Trilogue Salzburg is focussing on trust and deals with the question how politics, business and culture can build up innovative ways of promoting understanding and relation management.

Technological innovations are essential drivers of long-term and sustainable growth to ensure prosperity. Accordingly, there is currently a debate in Germany and the EU as to whether a new, strategic industrial policy can be an answer to the complex dynamics of digitisation.

Technological innovations and other transformation processes are changing our societies at an unprecedented pace. What effects does this have on social cohesion and how can it be strengthened? At the invitation of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, experts from Asia and Europe discussed these questions in Singapore.

Geopolitics has returned to vogue, and the EU does not enjoy a monopoly on influence in the Western Balkans. China is the latest player on the scene, and although its economic footprint is still relatively small, Beijing’s growing presence is a new reality that Brussels needs to contend with. China’s “no-strings attached” financing of infrastructure potentially undermines the EU’s reform-orientated approach.

Demographic aging will have a strong dampening effect on average incomes in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Austria and the United States in the next 30 years. However, this effect can be mitigated by increasing investment in automation and digitalization. Our study has examined how strong the diminishing effect on individual income growth will be and how much compensatory investments would be necessary.  

Soprano Anna El-Khashem from Russia and Tenor Long Long from China top the list at the 18th international singing competition NEUE STIMMEN. At the final round in Gütersloh, these young talents enthralled the jury of international opera experts. The three top competitors in the women and men category received cash prizes worth a total of 65,000 euros. Vladislav Buyalskiy from Ukraine won the new introduced Brian Dickie Young Singers Award.

Ten opera talents have qualified for the final round of the NEUE STIMMEN International Singing Competiton in Gütersloh. The final concert to be held on October 26, 2019 will be broadcast live on neue-stimmen.de, Takt 1 and arte Concert. 

18 young opera talents have qualified for the semi-final of the NEUE STIMMEN 2019 international singing competition. We will livestream the concert on Thursday evening from Gütersloh, Germany. There the singers will compete for their participation in the final concert on Saturday.

Social cohesion is essential to creating communities that enable an inclusive sense of belonging. The megatrends of globalization, digitalization and demographic change pose challenges to the cohesion that has proved essential to communities around the world. The “Trying Times – Rethinking Social Cohesion” conference held in Berlin September 4-6, 2019 provided a forum for some 80 participants from 22 countries to network as they share their experiences with social cohesion and learn from each other.