German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on Sunday for academic freedom to be protected, pointing to populist policies in the United States as a threat to scientific achievement.

Speaking in Hamburg at an award ceremony for young researchers, Steinmeier said: “The best recognized and high-performing academic and university system of the US threatens to be carelessly pulverized in the mill of populism and the battle against the so-called establishment.”

Speaking as patron of the Young People Research competition, he appealed for Germany to oppose a declaration of hostility to academic freedom.

At the ceremony, Oskar Rost, 17, and Marius Strauss, 18, received an award for developing software based on artificial intelligence (AI) to assess schoolwork in a more transparent and fair way. It spots mistakes, subtracts marks and makes proposals for grades.

A prize for originality went to Louis Schwarzlose, 17, who built a research buoy to record environmental data. The buoy can guide itself autonomously and draws power from the elements.

More than 167 young people participated in the final competition after being selected from 16 separate earlier rounds in the different states. The competition began in Hamburg in 1966.

-dpa