The European Forum Alpbach (EFA) is an Austrian nonprofit organisation and foundation based in Vienna, Austria. It is best known for hosting the event of the same name in the village of Alpbach. It is an interdisciplinary platform for science, politics, business and culture with its mission cited as "connecting international decision-makers from all sectors of society with an interested audience and committed young people".
The forum was founded in 1945 as "International College Weeks" by Otto Molden, who had been active in the Austrian resistance movement, and Simon Moser.[1] Nowadays, more than 4,000 people from over 70 countries accept the invitation to participate in the European Forum Alpbach each year. Participation is open to all interested parties. The events are held in the small village of Alpbach.
Event programme
The event in August is divided into several main parts. As of 2024 the programme is centred around the following four thematic tracks:
The programme is structured in different modules.[4] The Alpbach Seminars (formerly called Seminar Week) constitutes the core programme for scholarship holders.[3] Alpbach in Motion is a three-days summit, being held also within the framework of the European Forum Alpbach. The event offers different formats – from seminars to workshop, hikes, discussion etc.
Accompanying the programme of the European Forum Alpbach throughout is a comprehensive schedule of arts and culture. In exhibitions, concerts and lectures, young artists in particular are offered the opportunity to present their work to the public. There are also the spontaneously organised fireside chats in which sensitive issues can be openly discussed with well-known personalities.
In past years, the programme also included other formats like symposia, a seminar week, Alpbach summer school courses or an Alpbach media academy.
Former scholarship holders of the European Forum Alpbach founded initiative groups and clubs in more than 30 countries around the world (mostly in Central and Eastern Europe) in order to work together for the constant advancement of the forum. These groups and clubs promote the spirit of Alpbach in their home countries and universities and organise interdisciplinary events and lectures. They are considered to be sister organisations of the forum and most of them are giving out annual scholarships for students to attend the European Forum Alpbach.
EFA alumni present the Palumba initiative to the European Parliament
In 2024, alumni from Club Alpbach France, Spain, and Belgium led a campaign to encourage young people to take part in the 2024 European Parliament elections. The Palumba initiative quickly became one of the most downloaded voting advice applications[6] in Europe, with the aim of reducing abstention of young first-time voters.
The African Alpbach Network was founded in 2019 and consists of more than 70 members from more than ten African countries.
Alpbach in Motion Alumni Club
Alpbach in Motion (AIM) is a three-day summit taking place during the European Forum Alpbach. The AIM programme connects up to 40 emerging leaders from various business backgrounds. It aims to encourage its participants to strengthen Europe by bringing change and new ways of acting into their industries and networks. Former participants of the programme founded an alumni club that exchanges and organises events on a regular basis.
The EFA has been criticized for concealing its historical roots: As early as 1936, Simon Moser, co-founder of the forum and its scientific director until 1978, who was born in Jenbach, barely 20 kilometers from Alpbach, organized the first Austrian College Weeks on behalf of the Austrofascistcorporative state. Journalist Markus Wilhelm comments: "In 1935, the Schuschnigg regime enacted the Higher Education Act, which also provided for college weeks for students. These were intended to serve the ideological indoctrination of young people, strengthen the national community in line with clerical-fascist guidelines, and contribute to the creation of the ′new Austrian people′. The first of these university camps took place in Rotholz near Jenbach."[11][12]
Schuschnigg's authoritarian government had also appointed Moser, who was a chief officer of the Fatherland Front, as a "lecturer on ideological issues" at the University of Vienna. Similar to the National Socialist organization Strength Through Joy, the aim was to transform the "weak and pale city dwellers" in the Alpine villages into "strong, tanned figures". "This was to be achieved in the college camp through lectures on Austrian history, singing folk songs, and cultivating local customs, among other things. Of course, Dollfuss commemorations were also on the program.” After the Anschluss, Moser continued this jingoistic work in the form of photo books commissioned by the National Socialist Reich Labour Service and became a member of NSDAP on January 1, 1940 (membership number 7,886,075).[11][12]
Wilhelm's assessment in 2015 was that "[...] today's major event is not a direct continuation of the corporative state's college weeks, but one should not pretend that a virgin birth took place in 1945."[11]
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