Future Skills Symposium in Weimar
Experts from the fields of arts management, elite sports, music and business assess future skills
The Future Skills Symposium Weimar 2025, taking place from 30 September to 2 October, offers a forum for interdisciplinary exchange, reflective practice and social responsibility.
More than 35 experts, executives and decision-makers from the fields of arts management, elite sports, music and business have registered to take part in panels, expert discussions and workshops, where they will creatively explore key future skills and pass them on to students and young professionals.
Flyer for the symposium 'Future Skills'
To the website "Future Skills"
The early promotion of future skills connects all disciplines and is crucial for professional success: It strengthens effectiveness and resilience, opens up perspectives beyond active, specific careers – and is essential in the face of social, technological and ecological upheavals.
The symposium will focus on ‘Future Skills’ inspired leadership & design, creative cooperation, digital thinking & acting, sustainable impact, intercultural action and resilience & fitness.
‘Top careers are works of art,’ says the initiator of the conference, Prof. Dr. Jana Leidenfrost. ‘They are not achieved alone, but through successful cooperation, sound know-how, humanity and energy.’ According to the Weimar honorary professor for Arts Management, it is particularly inspiring when seemingly different worlds interact synergistically.
This interdisciplinary spirit already characterised the first Weimar symposium in 2024, which was held under the motto ‘Top-level sport and music: career paths and career transitions’.
The symposium sees itself as a forum for exchange, reflection and joint learning: young talents meet experienced personalities, students meet executives, artists meet experts from business, education, music and top-level sport.
While the ‘Kick-off in the Future Cosmos’ on 30 September in the Book Cube of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library will focus on analyses, needs and developments in keynote panels, the Reithaus will host parallel workshops and panel discussions on ‘Practice, Depth & Flow’ on 1 October.
Under the motto ‘It's showtime’, concluding discussion rounds and the classification of future skills into a separate framework will ensure that the results are comprehensively documented on 2 October at the Hochschulzentrum am Horn. The symposium will conclude with key messages on further promoting young talent.
External experts expected to attend include Birte Steven-Vitense from the German Olympic Sports Confederation, hockey coach Jami Mülders, Prof. Lars Seniuk, Rector of the Dresden Music University, and Prof. Martin Tröndle from Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen.
Guests from the business world include Christian Dick from R+V, Franziska Kindervater from Jenoptik AG and Sabrina Brockmann from Infineon, as well as Bernd Staudinger, former head of the Daimler Corporate Academy. In addition, there is an expert in “future skills” and innovation management, Dr. Martin Schwemmle.
The symposium is organised by the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar with its Arts Management programme, supported by the association weim|art e.V.
Sponsors and cooperation partners include the Ernst Abbe Foundation, the German Olympic Sports Confederation, the Thuringian Sports Aid Foundation, the Thuringian Olympic Training Centre, the Weimar Classical Foundation and the Weimar Broadcasting Hall Foundation.
Further information and registration by email: zukunftskosmos(at)hfm-weimar.de
[20 August 2025]