“Light, Life, Liberty:” President Andreas Marx on why Truth Matters at the University of Jena

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“We need to be open in order to be strong,” asserts Professor Dr. Andreas Marx, President of Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Framing openness as a necessity for both academic excellence and societal resilience, Dr. Marx discusses how his institution lives out its core mission of “Light, Life, Liberty.” To counter local political pressures on academic freedom and rebuild public trust in science post-pandemic, the university is practicing openness through direct community engagement—opening a dedicated communication hub and launching a mobile science bus to bring research directly to rural areas. Dr. Marx emphasizes that staying open and showing society the tangible value of higher education is essential to protecting academic freedom and keeping truth at the center of public life.

Episode highlight:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Marx: “We are just acquiring a van to go out into the countryside and to tell the people that they are important. And I was brought up in the countryside, and, when you talk about truth matters, well, you are remote, not every idea at the time — when I was young, in the 80s — not every idea made it to you. . . so this opens the eyes that one has to interconnect much more as an institution of higher education with people, and tell them that they are important.

Rob Quinn: Yeah, I think I was gonna say, I’d love to see the outreach, because my sense is, and it isn’t just in Germany, it’s around the world, it’s in the US, where we’re also experiencing pressures; universities have always engaged and served the public, but the public hasn’t always seen it. And so, I think that’s really important and inspiring work, so I thank you and your team for doing that.

Additional resources:

Learn more about the Friedrich Schiller University Jena mobile science bus to bring research directly to rural areas.

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