Chemistry

Much of the research outlined above is intensely interdisciplinary and therefore nearly all the ­faculty’s research groups collaborate closely with scientists from other faculties at the University (particularly from Biology, Physics, Medicine, Engineering, and Educational Sciences) as well as other research groups in Germany and abroad. Members of the faculty regularly make research visits and spend time abroad as guest professors (e. g., in China and Singapore), and numerous foreign scientists in turn conduct research and teach in the faculty (e.g., as Fellows of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation). The Faculty of Chemistry is involved in a total of nine coordinated national research networks (one Collaborative Research Centre, two Research Units, two DFG Priority Programmes, two Graduate Training Groups and two Clusters of Excellence). Three of these networks are directed and coordinated at the faculty. EU projects are likewise directed and coordinated wholly or in part at the Faculty of Chemistry, in addition to numerous projects funded by the BMBF, AiF, Volkswagen, industry, and particularly the DFG (individual grants). Overall this has led to a doubling of external funding over the past years, which has since stabilised at a high level by state and nationwide comparison.
The faculty is represented on several national and international boards by its members and regularly participates in national and international meetings and conferences to present research findings to a broad international audience. ­Colleagues from the faculty are often invited to give keynote lectures at these conferences. Research results are for the most part published in international peer-reviewed journals. International visibility is both an objective and a matter of course. The faculty initiates and organises ­international conferences, such as the first International Conference on Supramolecular Chemistry in spring 2011 in Essen, and the International Conference on BioNanoResponses as part of Priority Programme 1313 in the summer of 2011. The very good reputation of the faculty’s members in Germany was mirrored not least in the high number of candidates for election to the DFG ­Review Boards in 2011 (five out of 28 candidates based at UDE-UKE are members of the Faculty of Chemistry). Professor Mathias Epple was elected to the Biomaterials Review Board. Meanwhile, Professor Carsten Schmuck was elected to the board of directors of the Liebig-Association for Organic Chemistry and Professor Schmitz was elected as director of the Water Chemistry group; both bodies are sections of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), one of the largest scientific societies in the world. Colleagues from the faculty are also active members of the editorial boards of several journals. Professor Stephan Barcikowski was recently appointed editor of the new journal Biomaterials, Professor Stefan Rumann is managing editor of the Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften, and Professors Elke Sumfleth and Carsten Schmuck are members of the editorial board of the journal ChemKon of the GDCh “Teaching Chemistry” group. Professor Schmuck is on the editorial board of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry, Professor Jochen S. Gutmann is editor of Polymer Bulletin, Professor Torsten C. Schmidt is on the Board of Trustees of Nachrichten aus der Chemie, and Professor Mathias Epple is Associate Editor of RSC Advances.