The YKW Alumni Association

Since 2009 the alumni established a Verein to be more flexible in its financial matters and foster the network on its own legal feet. General assemblies are held annually. The rules of the Verein can be read here (German version only). 

The YKWA cooperate with institutions and networks such as the Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft, the British Embassy in Berlin and the German Embassy in London, the British-German Forum or the King Edward VII Foundation.

The YKWA organise events such as lectures, panels and discussions in a British-German-European context. In Berlin it has become a tradition to organise so-called Contemporary Issues where a keynote speaker discusses in a private group of alumni current topics. Alumni in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt organise small conferences focusing on economic issues – such as an Alumni Conference in 2019 in Eltville, Germany. Another conference will take place in London in June 2022.

Every few years it has become tradition for the network to organise the Young Königswinter Alumni Conference. Its concept is quite simple: the Alumni first decide where the conference is to be held, an voluntarily organising team is gathering itself together and there we go!

In September 2015, an alumni conference was held at Clare College Cambridge and in 2012 one at Wilton Park in UK for very interesting discussions with former German Federal Minister of the Environment, Mr Peter Altmaier, with the CEO of RWE npower, Mr Volker Beckers, and with Ben Moxham from 10 Downing Street.

In April 2009, a group of 40 YKW Alumni travelled to Israel for 5 days of fascinating visits, talks and insights in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the West Bank. In 2007, the Young Königswinter Alumni Conference was held in Hamburg. It drew the largest number of alumni so far and confirmed the growing strength of the network. In 2006, the annual conference took place in Istanbul, attracting around 80 participants who explored the question ‘Who are the Turks? Turkey’s place in Europe’.

The first Alumni Conference took place in March 1995 with participants attending key sessions of the Königswinter Conference parallel with their own programme of discussions and events. Further meetings of this kind took place in tandem with the Königswinter Conferences in Cambridge, Berlin, Edinburgh, Königswinter, Oxford, and Potsdam. In 2003, the Young Königswinter Alumni met in Brussels, a convenient location because of the increasing number of alumni based there and their involvement in the European policy-making process.