Director's Note

We are looking forward to a “taste of water” in Nobel Conference® 45. What is the state of our freshwater resources? What effect have humans had on major river systems and oceans? How will climate change affect our water supplies? What happens to the hormones that go down our drains? What is the future of our most vital resource and how is it bound up with other key socio-ecological issues, including global population growth, migrations to arid regions, increased use of irrigation, industrialization, and international resource conflicts?

Planning for Nobel Conference® 46 on Food and Nutrition, and Nobel Conference® 47 on Affective Neuroscience is already well under way. And, we have also started preparing for Nobel Conference® 50, when we plan to return to our roots and invite all living Nobel laureates to help us celebrate 50 years of success. I look forward to sharing these adventures with audiences from around the world as the new director of the Nobel Conference. I have the good fortune of taking the controls of a ship that is already climbing out of the stratosphere, having been launched by the vision of previous directors Richard Elvee and Tim Robinson and many others. I hope that you will join us on this mission to explore cutting-edge science issues and to engage in discussion of the moral and societal impact of these issues.

—Chuck Niederriter