Dr.-Eduard-Martin-Prize

The Dissertation Prize is awarded every year jointly by the Saarland University Society and the University to the best doctoral students from the individual faculties.

The award for outstanding doctoral theses has been presented since 1963, and since 1976 the prize has borne the name of Dr Eduard Martin, honorary senator and long-standing president of the Friends of the University Association. The winners receive a cash prize and a colourful owl at the ceremony organised by the University Society.

Award ceremony 2024

On 17 October 2024 at 18:00 in the Aula of Saarland University, this year's Eduard Martin Award winners will be honoured. In a deliberately very compact, concise and very individual presentation (guideline - only approx. 3 slides, 3 foreign words, 3 minutes speaking time), they will convincingly explain why their doctorates in particular are so successful, important and also useful for our society.

The keynote speech will be given by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Padó, Professor of Theoretical Computational Linguistics and winner of the 2006/2007 prize, on the topic "Who would ChatGPT elect? Chatbots and their understanding of the world": Chatbots are on everyone's lips - and on everyone's computers. Their ability to generate speech is impressive, but how far does their ability to comprehend substantive argumentation, e.g. political reasoning, extend? In my presentation, I will give an insight into our current research, in which we are investigating the extent to which chatbots have something like a ‘political worldview’ and what this potentially means for our dealings with ChatGPT & Co.