Chemistry
Cooperation and International News
Much of the research work described in this report is heavily interdisciplinary, and intensive cooperation therefore exists between virtually all the research groups of the Faculty, as the above examples illustrate, with scientists from other Faculties at our University (in particular Biology, Medicine, Physics, Engineering and Educational Sciences) as well as with other groups of researchers at home and abroad. In the course of their work, our colleagues regularly spend periods of time abroad as researchers and visiting professors, and numerous international scientists in turn research and teach at our Faculty (for example as Alexander von Humboldt fellows).
The Faculty has intensive contacts and cooperates closely with our neighbouring Universities of Bochum and Dortmund and the Universities of Applied Sciences in Krefeld and Gelsenkirchen. Close research collaboration also exists on all levels with the neighbouring Max Planck Institutes for Carbon Research and Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim and for Physiological Chemistry in Dortmund. Scientists from these institutions also work as professors, private lecturers and assistant lecturers at our Faculty within this cooperation.
As part of a strategic partnership between our Faculty and Evonik-Industries, six doctoral projects are funded with Evonik fellowships, and the appointment to an Evonik Foundation Junior Professorship for Colloid and Interface Chemistry is currently in progress. The Werdelmann Foundation similarly finances several doctoral scholarships in our Faculty and since July 2014 a Foundation Professorship for Supramolecular Functional Materials (Jun. Prof. Michael Giese).
The Faculty is represented by its members on various national and international committees and regularly presents its research findings to a broad international public at international conferences and congresses. Our colleagues are often invited to these conferences as keynote speakers. The majority of findings from the Faculty are published in international peer-reviewed journals. International visibility is both a goal and a matter of fact for the Faculty. In 2013, for example, the largest German-language conference on analytical chemistry ANAKON (organised by Prof. Torsten Schmidt and Prof. Oliver Schmitz) was held at the UDE in Essen and attended by more than 500 delegates and 35 exhibitors.
The very good reputation of the members of the Faculty throughout Germany is reflected not least in their role in national associations and committees. Prof. Mathias Epple is DFG peer reviewer on the Biomaterials Review Board, Prof. Carsten Schmuck is on the board of the Liebig-Vereinigung für Organische Chemie, and Prof. Torsten C. Schmidt is the Chair of the Fachgruppe Wasserchemie. In this function Prof. Schmidt has also organised the annual national conference of the Water Chemistry Society since 2013. In 2014, Essen for the first time hosted the prestigious Liebig Lecture, to which the GDCh invites a promising young colleague from Europe for a two-week lecture series at a total of 6 universities in Germany. Colleagues from our Faculty also sit on the editorial committees of important disciplinary journals. Prof. Stephan Barcikwoski is the editor of Biomaterials journal. Prof. Stefan Rumann is executive editor of the Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften. Prof. Elke Sumfleth and Prof. Carsten Schmuck are members of the editorial board of ChemKon, the journal of the Fachgruppe Chemieunterricht in the GDCh. Prof. Schmuck additionally sits on the editorial board of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry, Prof. Jochen S. Gutmann is the editor of Polymer Bulletin, and Prof. Torsten C. Schmidt is a member of the board of trustees of Nachrichten aus der Chemie and in 2014 was appointed to the editorial advisory board of the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. Prof. Matthias Epple is associate editor of RSC Advances journal.