Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Last updated
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
HeadquartersGermany, Bonn
President
Robert Schlögl
Website www.humboldt-foundation.de

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (German : Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between select scientists and scholars from Germany and from abroad. It was established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and is funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as other national and international partners. [1] [2]

Contents

Description

Every year, the Foundation grants more than 700 competitive research fellowships and awards, primarily going to academics from natural sciences, mathematics and the humanities. [3] It allows scientists and scholars from all over the world to come to Germany to work on a research project they have chosen themselves together with a host and collaborative partner. Additionally it funds German scholars' via the Feodor Lynen Fellowships to go anywhere in the world to work on a research project with a host and collaborative partner, who must have held an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship themself. [4] In particular, these fellowships and awards include a number of large prizes, such as Humboldt Professorships and Sofia Kovalevskaya Awards. [5] [6] Fellowships and awards from the Foundation are considered to be among the most prestigious and generous awards in Germany; the alumni network is the foundation's greatest asset, comprising over 26,000 Humboldtians in more than 140 countries — including 57 Nobel laureates. [7]

History

The Foundation was initially established in Berlin in 1860 in order to provide German scientists support to do research in other countries. [8] It was named after the polymath Alexander von Humboldt. In 1923, when hyperinflation was crippling much of the Weimar Republic’s economy, the Foundation ceased operations due to capital constraints. It was re-established by the German Reich in 1925, although its new goal was to attract and support talented, pro-German students from other countries to study and research in Germany. [9] The fall of Germany in 1945 led to the Foundation’s closure for a second time, until it was re-established in Bonn-Bad Godesberg on December 10, 1953, with a new President, the renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg, and a new goal “to grant fellowships to academics of foreign nationality, without regard to gender, race, religion, or ideology, to enable them to continue their academic training by a study-visit to Germany“. [10] In 2016 the Foundation helped establish the German Section of the Scholars at Risk (SAR) network, a group of research institutions, universities, and science organizations committed to supporting at-risk academics and promoting academic freedom. [11]

Prizes and Scholarships

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Planck Society</span> Association of German research institutes

The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the Max Planck Society in 1948 in honor of its former president, theoretical physicist Max Planck. The society is funded by the federal and state governments of Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feodor Lynen</span> German biochemist, Nobel Laureate

Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen was a German biochemist. In 1964 he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with Konrad Bloch for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism while he was director of the Max-Planck Institute for Cellular Chemistry in Munich.

The Humboldt Research Award, also known informally as the Humboldt Prize, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of Germany in recognition of their lifetime's research achievements. Recipients are "academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge academic achievements in the future". The prize is currently valued at €60,000 with the possibility of further support during the prize winner's life. Up to one hundred such awards are granted each year. Nominations must be submitted by established academics in Germany. As of 2023, over 2,000 awards have been granted.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestowed the Sofia Kovalevskaya Award from 2002 to 2020. Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891) was the first major Russian female mathematician, who made important contributions to mathematical analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe. This prestigious award named in her honor was given to promising young academics to pursue their line of research in the sciences or arts and humanities. The foundation encouraged applications from all areas of the academy so long as the investigator had received a Ph.D. in the previous six years and could be categorized as "top flight" by their publications and experience as commensurate with age.

The Gay-Lussac–Humboldt Prize is a German–French science prize. It was created in 1981 by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt based on the recommendation of the German and French research ministries. The prize money is €60,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernst Schering Prize</span> German science and technology award

The Ernst Schering Prize is awarded annually by the Ernst Schering Foundation for especially outstanding basic research in the fields of medicine, biology or chemistry anywhere in the world. Established in 1991 by the Ernst Schering Research Foundation, and named after the German apothecary and industrialist, Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering, who founded the Schering Corporation, the prize is now worth €50,000.

Ilme Schlichting is a German biophysicist.

Sigfried Bethke is a German physicist and science manager.

Alois Fürstner is an Austrian chemist. He is director of Organometallic Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim, Germany.

Bettina Valeska Lotsch is a German chemist. She is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Huber (physicist)</span> German physicist

Rupert Huber is a German physicist and university professor. Huber is known for his research in terahertz technology and semiconductor physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katja Loos</span> Dutch polymer chemist (born 1971)

Katja Loos is professor at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands holding the chair of Macromolecular Chemistry and New Polymeric Materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Hertweck</span> German chemist

Christian Hertweck is a German chemist, deputy director and head of the department of biomolecular chemistry at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Products Research and Infection Biology.

Andrés Fabián Lasagni is a scientist and laser expert. He is professor at the Technischen Universität Dresden and leads the Chair for Laser-based Manufacturing.

Karl Martin Wolf is a German experimental physicist specializing in electron and optical spectroscopy and their use for studying the dynamical processes in solid state materials, surfaces, and interfaces. He is the current director of the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerd Leuchs</span> German physicist

Gerhard "Gerd" Leuchs is a German experimental physicist in optics. He is the Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and an adjunct professor in the physics department at the University of Ottawa. From 1994-2019 he was a full professor of physics and since 2019 has been a senior professor at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paola Pinilla</span> Colombian astrophysicist

Paola Andrea Pinilla Ortiz is a Colombian astrophysicist whose research concerns the accretion of interplanetary dust clouds into protoplanetary disks as part of the formation of exoplanets. Educated in Colombia and Germany, she works in England as associate professor in exoplanets at the University College London Department of Space & Climate Physics, affiliated with the university's Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

Patricia Schady is a British astrophysicist specalizing in gamma-ray bursts and their host galaxies. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Bath.

Karin Lind is a Swedish astronomer whose research involves spectroscopy of stars in order to determine their chemical composition, and the use of this information to understand the origin of heavy elements in supernova explosions and the way radiation and energy moves through stellar atmospheres. Her work has in particular clarified the roles of Big Bang nucleosynthesis and supernovas in producing the quantities of lithium observed in early stars. She is an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University, and a participant and survey builder in the GALAH collaboration, which uses the Anglo-Australian Telescope's HERMES instrument to map the chemical compositions of stars in the Milky Way.

Xiaoying Zhuang is a researcher in computational mechanics, including continuum mechanics, peridynamics, and the analysis of vibration and fracture mechanics. She has applied these methods in the design of composite materials and nanostructures, including materials for the aerospace industry and nano-machines for harvesting vibrational energy. Originally from China, and educated in China and England, she has worked in Norway, China, and Germany, where she is Heisenberg Professor and Chair of Computational Science and Simulation Technology of Leibniz University Hannover.

References

  1. "About us". Archived from the original on 14 April 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  2. "Partners". Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  3. "Statistical Trends". Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  4. "Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship". www.humboldt-foundation.de. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  5. "Preisverleihung der Alexander von Humboldt-Professuren am 13. Mai in Berlin". Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw-online.de) (in German). 2024-04-29. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  6. "Sofja Kovalevskaja Awards". Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  7. "Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung - Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung". Archived from the original on 2020-12-01. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
  8. "History". www.humboldt-foundation.de. Archived from the original on 2020-06-12. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  9. Klagenfurt, Johannes (2013). "Rezension von: Die Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung und das Ausländerstudium in Deutschland 1925-1945". sehepunkte (in German). 13 (10). Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  10. "Alexander von Humboldt Foundation". Studycor. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  11. "Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation - 21 - German Universities unite to provide more support for threatened researchers". www.humboldt-foundation.de. Archived from the original on 2018-02-20. Retrieved 2016-09-23.
  12. "Humboldt Research Fellowship". www.humboldt-foundation.de. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  13. "Humboldt Research Award". www.humboldt-foundation.de. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  14. "Max Planck-Humboldt Research Award". Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  15. "Forschende aus Schwellen- und Entwicklungsländern ausgezeichnet". Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw-online.de) (in German). 2022-02-11. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  16. "Appel à candidatures pour le prix scientifique franco-allemand Gay-Lussac Humboldt 2019". Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche (in French). 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  17. "Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award". www.humboldt-foundation.de. Retrieved 2024-08-27.