ORCHEM Prize for Early-Career Researchers

The Liebig Association for Organic Chemistry in the German Chemical Society awards the ORCHEM Award for Young Scientists every two years to early-career scientists who have distinguished themselves through new, original and pioneering scientific work in the field of organic chemistry and who do not yet hold a multi-year leadership position.

The award is endowed with EUR 5000 and supported by BASF. It is generally awarded to two people and comprises a certificate of award and prize money of € 2500 per person.

The ORCHEM Award is traditionally presented at the ORCHEM Conference. The awardees present the results of their award-winning work here in a lecture.

Next call for proposals: autumn/winter 2027

Places and academic titles at the time of the award ceremony

2024
Dr Malte Gersch, TU Dortmund University, in recognition of his fundamental and pioneering work on the investigation of proteolytic enzymes of the ubiquitin system.

Dr Golo Storch, Technical University of Munich, in recognition of his fundamental and pioneering work in the field of organic photochemistry, particularly the investigation of flavin systems in molecular photocatalysis.

2022
Dr Johannes Broichhagen, Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology Berlinin recognition of his work on the development of new molecular toolsfor answering important questions in the life sciences.

Junior Professor Dr Max Hansmann, TU Dortmund Universityin recognition of his fundamental and pioneering work in the fieldof the synthesis and characterisation of reactive intermediates and the development of organic redox systems.

2020 (Award presented at the GDCh Science Forum Chemistry 2021 due to the pandemic)
Dr Josep Cornella (Mülheim a. d. Ruhr) in recognition of his groundbreaking work on redox catalysis with bismuth.

Professor Dr Philipp Heretsch (Berlin) in recognition of his widely acclaimed work on the synthesis of steroids and terpenes.

2018
Privatdozent Dr Florian Beuerle (Würzburg) in recognition of his innovative and widely acclaimed work in the field of dynamic covalent chemistry for the construction of highly defined cage compounds and two-dimensional π-conjugated polymer materials.

Junior Professor Dr Ivana Fleischer (Tübingen) in recognition of her innovative and widely acclaimed work in the field of the selective functionalisation of olefins and carboxylic acid derivatives and resource-efficient catalysis with non-noble metals.

2016
Professor Dr Olga Garcia Mancheño (Regensburg) in recognition of her innovative and widely acclaimed work on the topic “Novel Synthetic Methods based on C-H bonds & Modern Catalysis for Sustainable Synthesis”.

Dr Thomas Magauer (Munich) in recognition of his widely acclaimed and innovative work on the topic “Natural products as a rich source of pharmaceuticals and inspiration for innovative chemical transformations”.

2014
Professor Dr Franziska Schoenebeck (Aachen) in recognition of her innovative and widely acclaimed theoretical and experimental studies of reaction mechanisms, particularly palladium-catalysed reactions

Professor Dr Daniel Werz (Braunschweig) in recognition of his widely acclaimed and innovative work on carbohydrate chemistry and the synthesis of heterocycles via donor–acceptor cyclopropanes

2012
Professor Dr Christian Hackenberger (Berlin) in recognition of his widely acclaimed and innovative work on chemoselective ligation and the efficient synthesis of protein–protein and protein–carbohydrate conjugates

Professor Dr Axel Jacobi von Wangelin (Regensburg) in recognition of his widely acclaimed and innovative work on iron-catalysed coupling reactions and metal-, organo- and photocatalytic syntheses of carbo- and heterocycles.

2010
Dr Hans-Dieter Arndt (Dortmund) in recognition of his widely acclaimed contributions to synthesis-supported chemical biology, particularly his organic-synthetic and molecular-biological work in the field of cyclic thiopeptide antibiotics

Professor Dr Nicolai Cramer (Zurich) in recognition of his widely acclaimed and innovative work on selective transition-metal-catalysed bond activation with ring opening and the efficient synthesis of complex natural products and active pharmaceutical ingredients

2008
Dr Peter Spiteller (Munich) in recognition of his widely acclaimed work on the isolation and structural elucidation of novel metabolites of higher fungi and their ecological function in defence against herbivores

Professor Dr Magnus Rueping (Frankfurt a. M.) in recognition of his groundbreaking contributions in the highly competitive field of organocatalysis, particularly his work on enantioselective BrØnsted acid catalysis

2006
Dr Lutz Ackermann (Munich) in recognition of his widely acclaimed development of air-stable phosphine oxides as pre-ligands for Pd-, Ni- and Ru-catalysed cross-coupling reactions of chloroarenes

Professor Dr Martin Oestreich (Münster) in recognition of his innovative contributions to asymmetric synthesis, particularly with the aid of bicyclic organosilicon compounds with Si-based chirality

2004
Dr Frank Glorius (Mülheim) in recognition of his design of bis(oxazoline)-derived carbene ligands for organometallic catalysis and his asymmetric hydrogenation of chirally modified pyridines

Privatdozent Dr Hans-Joachim Wagenknecht (Garching) in recognition of his investigations into the mechanism of novel reduction-initiated charge-transfer processes through DNA

2002
Professor Dr A. Stephen K. Hashmi (Stuttgart) in recognition of his contributions to homogeneous gold catalysis of organic reactions and to the chemistry of metallacycloalkanes

Dr Michael Müller (Jülich) in recognition of his work on the development of enantioselective enzymatic syntheses

2000
Dr Dr Clemens Richert (Konstanz) in recognition of his original contributions to the molecular recognition of nucleic acid structures, particularly his work on “molecular caps”, which point to new avenues for the development of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Dr Stefan Bräse (Aachen) in recognition of his outstanding contributions to organic solid-phase synthesis, which opens up new possibilities for the development of biologically active compounds