Board of Trustees of the Viadrina Prize Foundation

Claus Detjen established the Viadrina Prize together with Viadrina Rector Prof. Dr h. c. mult Hans N. Weiler. The prize was first awarded to the translator and writer Karl Dedecius in 1999.

Detjen managed the Rhineland pilot project for cable and satellite communication in Ludwigshafen, which gave rise to Germany's dual broadcasting system, and the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers. In 1991, Claus Detjen came to Frankfurt (Oder), where he edited the Märkische Oderzeitung until 1998.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Viadrina he secured the future of the Viadrina Prize with a generous donation. Claus Detjen is an honorary senator of the European University Viadrina.

Ilona Antoniszyn is a former Deputy Voivode of Lower Silesia (2010–2012) and Deputy Minister (2012–2015) in the Polish Ministry of Economy. She is currently Head of Representation for Government Relations and European Affairs at the Volkswagen AG in Poland.

Ilona Antoniszyn is also a graduate of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder): She studied economics from 1995 to 2000.

Dr Lars Gutheil has been Managing Director of the Chamber of Commerce Abroad (AHK) in Warsaw since 2019 and is also Bavaria's official representative in Poland. Previously, he was Deputy Managing Director of the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce (AHK) from 2015 to 2019. From 2006 to 2015, he was Head of Public Relations and Membership Marketing at the German-Dutch Chamber of Commerce (AHK) in The Hague.

Prof. Dr. Dagmara Jajeśniak-Quast is Professor of Interdisciplinary Polish Studies and Director of the Viadrina Center of Polish and Ukrainian Studies (VCPU). She has been a member of the Förderkreis since 2009, which she chaired from 2016 to 2021.

Prof. Dr Bogumiła Kaniewska was the first woman to be elected Rector of Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in 2020. She was previously Dean of the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology (2012) and Vice Rector for Student Affairs from 2016.

Basil Kerski has been a member of the Förderkreis of the European University Viadrina since 2009. He became known as a political scientist, essayist and journalist as well as editor-in-chief of the German-Polish magazine DIALOG. He is a member of the German-Polish Copernicus Group, which was awarded the Viadrina Prize in 2007.

Since 2011, Kerski has directed the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk.

Dr. Martin Koopmann has been the Managing Director of the Genshagen Foundation since 2009 and is responsible in particular for the focus area "European dialogue and thinking Europe politically".

Dr Agnieszka Łada-Konefał has been Deputy Director at the German Poland Institute Darmstadt since 2020. Prior to that, she managed the Europe Programme at the Warsaw Institute of Public Affairs (Instytut Spraw Publicznych – ISP). Among other things, she is a member of the German-Polish Copernicus Group and is active in numerous other academic and civil society committees.

Since January 2024, Dr Marek Prawda has held the office of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Poland.

From 2006 to 2012 he was Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Germany. From 2012 to 2016, he was Poland's Permanent Representative to the European Union and subsequently headed the European Commission Representation in Poland from 2016 to 2021.

Prawda is a long-standing member of the Board of Trustees of the European University Viadrina.

In the 1980s, he was active in the Solidarność movement and is the author of numerous works on Polish-German relations and European integration.