Newsportal

In spring this year, the Münster Centre for Emerging Researchers (CERes) celebrated its launch as a central academic institution at the University of Münster. It represents an important contact for aspiring researchers. In this interview, Prof. Stefanie van Ophuysen, the Scientific Director at CERes, talks about the time during a doctorate and about current developments in promoting doctoral students and postdocs.

What are the career prospects inside and outside academia? In short guest articles, three early stage researchers describe their career paths and hopes for the future.

Depending on the degree programme, there are various requirements for gaining one of the often coveted places at a university. At the University of Münster’s School of Music, hundreds of applicants present themselves on a few days in May to demonstrate their skills in theoretical and, above all, practical examinations and convince the teaching staff of their suitability.

The choice of words, correct grammar and coherent syntax – all these can have an influence when it comes down to whom the authorities believe. After her analysis of several dozen statements, Joy Steigler-Herms arrived at a clear result. Anyone who expresses themselves in an educated way instead of colloquially will be seen as being more trustworthy in nine out of ten cases.

In recognition of his outstanding research in the field of photocatalysis with visible light, the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy will award an honorary doctorate to David MacMillan on 11 June. Norbert Robers spoke with the exceptional researcher.

The University of Münster is delighted at approvals given for two large-scale projects. Firstly, the German Research Foundation is setting up a new Collaborative Research Centre (CRC)/Transregio in Medicine. And secondly, the CRC at Münster entitled “Geometry: Deformations and Rigidity” is being extended.

A team from the University of Münster and the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam has now developed a combined vaccine lead from synthetic fluorinated sugar molecules that is effective against meningococci B and C simultaneously.

David MacMillan is one of the most successful researchers of our time in the field of catalysis and molecular chemistry. He is also a pioneer of photocatalysis with visible light. For his outstanding research in this field, he will receive an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy on 11 June.

There are reasons to celebrate these days – on both sides of the German-Dutch border. On 21 May 1964, representatives of the University of Münster and the Twente University of Applied Sciences met for the first time and formed a partnership that continues to this day. Rector Prof. Dr. Johannes Wessels met his Dutch colleagues to celebrate this friendship.

A team of researchers led by Prof Dr Armido Studer from the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Münster presents a new strategy, with which the so-called difluoromethyl group can be precisely introduced at specific sites in pyridine derivatives. This method could potentially identify candidates for new drugs and agrochemicals.

A team led by chemist Prof Frank Glorius has developed an algorithm that identifies molecular structures that are particularly relevant to a given problem. It uses these structures to encode the properties of molecules for various machine-learning models.

In many ways, nature serves as a model for processes and functions which we use in our everyday lives. Prof. Christian Grimme from the Department of Information Systems at the University of Münster has been working for many years now on, and with, so-called evolutionary algorithms which – as the name suggests – are oriented towards the underlying thoughts contained in the theory of biological evolution. Kathrin Kottke spoke to him about the function of this informatics-based approach.