The Leopoldina has a long tradition of maintaining and promoting international scientific exchange. Around a quarter of the Academy’s 1,400 members are from non-German-speaking countries, with more than 30 nationalities represented. The discussion of current scientific issues in high-level international symposia is an important aspect of the Leopoldina’s international activities.

One example is the trilateral symposium jointly organised by the Leopoldina, the French Académie des sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences entitled “Future of Sciences, Sciences for the Future: Chemistry and its Interfaces with Biology and Physics”. To name a further example, the Leopoldina and the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences held a joint symposium in Kumasi, Ghana, that focused on tropical infectious diseases and possibilities of increasing collaborative research in this field. In a cooperation project with the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) the Leopoldina has committed itself to science-based policy advise in the areas water management, biodiversity, climate change adaptation as well as health and nutritition.