Academic Awards and Honours

In their history, the institutes of the Göttingen Campus have been highly successful in attracting the "best minds". The outstanding scientists have established the international reputation of the institutions and continue to shape their profile to this day. Here you will find a small selection of the long list of historical personalities who have studied or researched in Göttingen, as well as an overview of current award winners.

Latest Awards

  • Junior researcher investigates the restoration of vision

    Patrick Jendritza from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA, has been awarded a junior fellow position at the Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Optogenetic Therapies (EKFZ-OT) at Göttingen University Medical Center (UMG). Since January 1, 2026, the young scientist has been leading the “Visual Circuits” research group, which is working on the development of light-controlled brain-computer interfaces for restoring vision. The research…

    Awards

  • Kees de Jager Prize for Theodosios Chatzistergos

    Re-examining and improving a 33-year-old publication, the MPS researcher confirms that the Sun does not account for the increase in Earth’s temperature over the past century.
    How do fluctuations in the Sun's brightness affect the climate on Earth? And what role does our star play in current climate change? To answer these questions, a look into our star’s past is necessary. In this endeavor, the most meaningful parameter is the total solar irradiance. It indicates how much radiation from the Sun in all wavelengths reaches Earth’s atmosphere. The total solar irradiance can only be measured directly with the necessary…

    Awards

  • Melina Schuh honored with Science Breakthrough 2025

    The director at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences and her team were the first to visualize the entire ovulation process in mouse follicles in real-time.
    The director at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences and her team were the first to visualize the entire ovulation process in mouse follicles in real-time. For this decisive breakthrough in her field, she has been awarded the 2025 Science Breakthrough in the Life Sciences category, as announced by the Falling Walls Foundation today. The jury selected her as the winner from 240 nominations. At the November 9 award…

    MBExC

  • Funding for training and research in biological complexity

    EU funds international partnership for network to understand biological systems
    Complex biological systems are more than the sum of their parts – their properties emerge from the dynamic interaction of their components, such as molecules or cells. PhD researchers now have the opportunity to develop their own theoretical perspective on these systems as part of an international Doctoral Network. A European consortium initiated by researchers from the University of Göttingen, the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and…

    Awards

  • Top achievements honored

    Cai Dieball, scientist at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences, and Björn Müller, researcher at the MPI for Solar System Research, have been awarded the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding achievements in their dissertations.
    Stochastic dynamics in small systemsAtoms and molecules are continuously in thermal motion in their microscopic world. As a result, small biophysical systems, such as molecular machines, are subject to random dynamics. In his doctoral thesis, Cai Dieball investigated the properties of these random dynamics along individual motion paths, known as trajectories, from the perspective of mathematical physics. He focused on the mathematical concept of…

    MPI nat

  • Madame de Staël Prize awarded to Viola Priesemann

    The ALLEA award recognizes Viola Priesemann, Board Member of the German Young Academy ("Die Junge Akademie"), for her groundbreaking contributions to interdisciplinary science, her exceptional leadership during the pandemic, and her dedication to fostering pan-European collaboration in science, policy, and public health.
    ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, has awarded Viola Priesemann with the 2024 Madame de Staël Prize for European Values in recognition of her remarkable scientific achievements in the field of physics, her exceptional leadership and her profound commitment to fostering international scientific collaboration in response to the challenges generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. "Global challenges like the outbreak…

    MBExC

  • Millions in funding for interstellar astrochemistry research

    548 project proposals were submitted for the competitiv Synergy Grants of the European Research Council (ERC) this year; only 10 percent were successful. One of them is IRASTRO, a joint research project of Alec Wodtke, Director at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen (Germany), Liv Hornekær from Aarhus University (Denmark), Peter Saalfrank from the University of Potsdam (Germany), and Varun Verma from the…

    MPI nat

    Göttingen Historical Personalities

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