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Biosafety Organization (ORG)
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published: 24 Oct 2008 last updated: 03 Nov 2014

Federation of German Scientists (VDW) ()
Federation of German Scientists (VDW)
EN
EN
Universitätstr 16
Zurich,
CH-8092, Switzerland
  • +41 44 632 4322; 41-44-430-30-60
  • +41 44 632 1215; 41-44-430-30-61
Detailed information
Non-governmental organization (NGO)
  • Legislative and regulatory framework
    Biotechnology, trade and the environment
    Administrative framework
    EN
The Federation of German Scientists (FGS; German acronym VDW) was founded in 1959 in West-Berlin by a group of renowned nuclear scientists including Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and the Nobel-prize laureates Max Born, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg and Max von Laue. Two years earlier this group of experts had become well-known to the public as the 'Göttinger 18': Nuclear scientists who had publicly argued against a nuclear armament of the German Bundeswehr. Both the 'Göttinger Erklärung' and the formation of the FGS were an expression of the new sense of responsibility felt by scientists after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Linked organizations
Additional Information
According to its statutes laid down in 1959, FGS aims to

    * keep up and deepen the awareness of those working in science for their responsibility for the effects which their work has on society;
    * study the problems which result from the continuous development of science and technology;
    * assist science and its representatives in making public the questions related to the application of scientific and technical developments;
    * provide advice and thus exercise influence on decisions as long as they are assessible and can be dealt with by means of scientific knowledge and methods, and to point out all forms of misuse of scientific and technical results;
    * to defend the freedom of scientific research and the free exchange of its results and to expand and strengthen the traditional international cooperation of scientists.
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