UniCat offers the Clara Immerwahr Award for the first time

October 24th, 2011

The Cluster of Excellence “Unifying Concepts in Catalysis” (UniCat) is calling for applications for the Clara Immerwahr Award, which is associated with a financial support of 15.000 Euro for a research stay at UniCat.

The award is henceforth to be offered once per year on an international level and aims to reward the outstanding research of an excellent young female scientist in the field of catalysis. It is thought to pave the way for setting up an independent research group in the consortium, or for establishing close collaborative links with UniCat. The Clara Immerwahr Award 2012 is funded by BASF SE, one of UniCat's partners in industry, and by the TU Berlin.

The deadline for applications is November 15th 2011. The Award is intended for young female scientist at an early stage of her career (postdoctoral fellow, junior researcher) from Germany and abroad working in the fields of chemistry, physics, biology, chemical process engineering or biotechnology and researching areas relevant to catalysis. The selection is made by a jury of five Professors from the UniCat consortium. The winner will be announced in December 2011 and will be honoured during a public ceremony involving a guest lecture held by the internationally renowned female scientist, Prof. Dr. Ada Yonath, Rehovot, Israel, in February 2012 at TU Berlin. More information on the Clara Immerwahr Award can be found at www3.unicat.tu-berlin.de/clara-immerwahr-award

The Clara Immerwahr Award serves as an excellent example of the promotion of excellent young female scientists and is another successful measure taken by UniCat aimed at advancing female researchers. Alongside publicity for excellent women scientists, these measures include seminars on gender awareness and professionalisation of members of UniCat, the establishment of a guest scientist programme specifically for female scientists, the forming of Success Teams and the founding of the UniCat regular informal women’s meeting. More detailed information on the individual measures can be found on the UniCat gender website at www3.unicat.tu-berlin.de/Gender.54.0.html .

The Clara Immerwahr Award is a tribute by UniCat to Dr. Clara Immerwahr, who obtained her doctorate at the University of Breslau in 1900 with a research paper in physical chemistry, making her the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry from a German university. Moreover, her marriage to Fritz Haber provides a direct link to the Fritz Haber Institute, a member institution of UniCat. 

UniCat

“Unifying Concepts in Catalysis” (UniCat) is the Cluster of Excellence within the framework of the German Initiative for Excellence researching the economically important field of catalysis. More than 250 chemists, physicists, biologists and engineers from four universities and two Max Planck research institutes from Berlin and Potsdam are involved in this interdisciplinary research network. The Cluster is hosted by the Technische Universität Berlin. The subject areas covered range from the chemical conversion of natural and biogas, the activation of carbon dioxide and the creation of hydrogen from light and water, to the synthesis of active ingredients using enzymes.

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For further information please contact:
Claudia Nasrallah, Gender Coordinator, UniCat Cluster of Excellence; Tel.: +49 (0) 30/314-28 882, E-Mail: claudia.nasrallah(at)tu-berlin.de

Dr. Martin Penno, Public Relations, UniCat Cluster of Excellence, Tel.: +49 (0) 30/314-28 592, E-Mail: martin.penno(at)tu-berlin.de

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