UniCat Professor Robert Schlögl has received the Innovation Award of North Rhine-Westphalia as Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion.
For his contribution to the turnaround in energy policy, Prof. Robert Schlögl, Director of the Fritz Haber Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, has received the Innovation Award of North Rhine-Westphalia in the category honorary award on February 29th. The award honors an individual “who is a passionate and dedicated innovator of sustainable changes in science, business and society” according to the website of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of North Rhine-Westphalia.
In her laudation, Minister of Science Svenja Schulze cited Schlögl’s habilitation supervisor, the Nobel laureate Gerhard Ertl. Schulze spoke of Schlögl as not only an excellent scientist, but also as an outstanding organizer of research processes. She emphasized especially his interdisciplinary approach and holistic view of the challenges associated with the turnaround in energy policy, as well as thanking him for his unceasing dedication and extraordinary commitment to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as scientific location.
Schlögl was moved upon receiving the award: “Such an award is a special recognition of the team’s achievements and a lovely confirmation that the effort is worthwhile!”
Schlögl has been Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (MPI-CEC) in Mülheim an der Ruhr and since 1994 Director of the Fritz Haber Institute (FHI) of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. He is one of the founders of the Cluster of Excellence UniCat and since 2012 one of three Directors of the UniCat-BASF Joint Lab BasCat. Schlögl researches heterogeneous catalysis in the UniCat Research Fields D1 and D2. His research group at the MPI CEC mainly focuses on the conversion of electricity into hydrogen using water splitting as well as on artificial fuels and fertilizers.
Schögl holds numerous other positions and honorary professorships and has been honored for his work with many awards.
In regard to his work, he states: “Energy conversion is a large-scale technological application of scientific fundamentals, which will one day be the largest industry run by humanity. In order to set this industry up on a solid foundation, we need basic research. Thus, it is our task to lay the rational basis on which others can build their technologies.”
The Innovation Award is the most significant research prize in the country, which has now been awarded for the seventh time in the categories innovation, junior researchers and honorary. The awardees were honored for excellent research, which distinguishes itself through societal as well as practical relevance.
The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (MPI-CEC) in Mülheim an der Ruhr focuses on basic chemical processes that are important for the storage and conversion of energy. The aim is to store sunlight in small, energy-rich molecules in order to allow energy to be usable independent of time and place.
Based on the press release of the MPI-CEC of 01.03.2016 by Christin Ernst.
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