Currently two junior group leaders and eight full professors are heading the research groups at the Organisch-Chemischen Institut. They are supportet by several analytical divisions belonging to the institute. Read more about the research of the individual groups and their contribution to international and interdisciplinary networks.

The Institute of Organic Chemistry is delighted that the German Research Foundation (DFG) has awarded Prof. Dr. Armido Studer the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2026. With Germany's most prestigious research award, worth €2.5 million, the DFG is honoring his groundbreaking work in the field of organic radical chemistry.

The Rectorate of the University of Münster has awarded 13 young scientists with the Dissertation Prize of the Year 2025. In addition to scientific excellence, the dissertations must “demonstrate a high degree of originality and make a significant contribution to current research.”

Since 2021, a graduate school in chemistry established at the University of Münster has been dedicated to so-called functional pi systems. The German Research Foundation has now announced that it will continue to fund the doctoral program for the next four and a half years with around 5.5 million euros.

Chemists Prof. Dr. Frank Glorius and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Zeier are among the “Highly Cited Researchers 2025” (Clarivate Analytics). The prestigious list includes approximately 7,100 scientists worldwide in 21 categories each year. The list features researchers whose work between 2014 and 2024 ranks among the top one percent of the most cited publications in their field and year.

Dr. Line Muradi (Institute of Organic Chemistry), together with Dr. Rana Hussein Ali (Goethe University Frankfurt a. M.), Dr. Casey Paquola (Forschungszentrum Jülich), and Dr. Jingyuan Xu (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), has been awarded the L’Oréal UNESCO For Women in Science Support Prize 2025.

A research team led by Prof. Dr. Ryan Gilmour and Prof. Dr. Johannes Neugebauer (Institute of Organic Chemistry) has succeeded in opening up a completely new field of application for an enantioselective aluminum–salen catalyst.

The chemist Prof. Dr. Frank Glorius has received the Carus Medal from the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. With this award, the academy recognizes the contribution of his research to the efficiency and sustainability of catalysis, a key technology of modern society

A team led by Prof Armido Studer from the Institute of Organic Chemistry has developed an efficient skeletal editing method for frequently used heteroaromatic structures. The technique could serve as a means to chemically modify biologically active compounds.

We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to Robert Hein, project leader in the CRC 1459 and member of the Center for Soft Nanoscience, on his recent appointment as W1 Junior Professor at the Organic Chemistry Institute of the University of Münster!

The German Chemical Society (GDCh) will present Armido Studer with the Adolf von Baeyer Commemorative Medal on September 29th. He is receiving the award for his outstanding scientific achievements in the field of organic radical chemistry. Recognized as one of the world's leading experts in this area, he has significantly contributed to a "renaissance" of radical chemistry.

A team headed by Prof Armido Studer has presented a new, efficient method for incorporating nitrogen into organic molecules. This method could be of interest for the production of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and materials science.

Chemist Lukas Paetow, a PhD student in the international research training group Münster-Nagoya, is currently in Nagoya, Japan, for a research stay. Buses and trains are always on time there and the convenience stores are open around the clock. A guest article.

A Japanese-German research team has created and analysed carbon nanobelts containing thiophene. Such structures are particularly conductive and potentially suitable as optoelectronic components.

Together with Evonik the JungeChemieForum (JCF) Münster has awarded the Evonik Preis 2025 to Jannik Eschenbach (prize for the master thesis) for his work on the characterization of protein interactions and the insulin-regulated aminopeptidase and Malte Haring (prize for the doctoral studies) for the selective functionalization of pyridines.

Under the theme ‘Do It Yourself for Chemists’, Prof. Dr. Gustavo Fernandez and Sebastian Baumert prepared the last-minute Christmas celebrations with an audience of around 500 at the Christmas lecture of the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy . With humour and spectacular experiments, the chemists from the OC Institute proved that chemistry has a solution for everything.

Other older press releases of the Organic Chemistry Institute are summarized in press archive from 2016.