Prof. Holger Braunschweig
Holger Braunschweig is head and chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Würzburg, as well as managing head and founding director of our newly established research center ICB - institute of sustainable chemistry & catalysis with boron. He obtained his PhD and Habilitation with Prof. P. Paetzold (RWTH Aachen). He was post-doc with Prof. M. F. Lappert at Sussex and held a position as Reader at Imperial College, London.
Over the past decades, he made significant achievements in numerous areas of research including (i) the synthesis and reactivity of reactive low-valent main-group compounds, (ii) small-molecule activation by low-valent boron species, (iii) the synthesis of novel and photophysically-active boron, beryllium and aluminum heterocycles, (iv) the study of highly reactive small boron-containing molecules, and (v) the synthesis of boron-chain compounds and boron-containing polymers.
His work was published in over 770 publications, the majority of which appeared in first ranking journals. His discoveries have been highlighted in a wide range of outlets, including New Scientist, The Times of London, Science, Science Advances, Nature, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, Nature Synthesis, Chem, Chemical and Engineering News, Chemistry World, Spektrum, Chemie in unserer Zeit, JACS, and Angewandte Chemie.
He was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2009), the RSC Main Group Chemistry Award (2014), the Alfred Stock Memorial Prize (2016), the Mond-Nyholm Award (2021), the M. Frederick Hawthorne Award (2024), and the prestigious ENI Prize (2024). He also received numerous named lectureship (e.g. Arduengo, Bruker, Glenn Seaborg, Margot Becke, Frankland) and lecture series (e.g. ScotCHEM, IOCF, JSPS) invitations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy. He is/has been a member of several Advisory and Editorial Advisory Boards, as well as a member of the Senate Committee on Research Training Groups (GRKs, DFG), and the Evaluation Committee on Research Buildings of the German Council of Science & Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat).
Academy Memberships
| since 2019 | Foreign Fellow, Indian National Science Academy |
| since 2015 | Corresponding Member, North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts |
| since 2011 | Member, Leopoldina - German National Academy of Science |
| since 2009 | Member, Bavarian Academy of Science |
| since 2002 | Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) |
Board Memberships
| 2021-2024 | Member of the International Editorial Board, Angewandte Chemie |
| 2020-2023 | Member of the Senate Committee on Research Training Groups (GRKs) of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) |
| 2017-2023 | Member of the Evaluation Committee on Research Buildings of the German Council of Science & Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) |
| 2017-2021 | Member of the Editorial Board (Kuratorium), Angewandte Chemie |
| 2017-2024 | Member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. |
| 2017-current | Member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Organometallics |
| 2014-2021 | Member of Advisory Board, Leibniz Institute for Catalysis, Rostock |
| 2012-current | Member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Dalton Transactions |
| 2008-2016 | Member of DFG Review Board for Chemistry (Fachkollegium) |
| 2007-2010 | Member of the Wöhler Vereinigung für Anorganische Chemie |
| 2006-2009 | Member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Organometallics |
| 2005-current | Member of Advisory Board, IMEBORON conferences |
| 2004-2019 | Member of Advisory Board, EUROBORON conferences |
Selected Major Awards
| 2024 | Eni Prize for Advanced Environmental Solutions |
| 2024 | M. Frederick Hawthorne Award of the American Chemical Society |
| 2021 | Mond-Nyholm Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry |
| 2016 | Alfred Stock Memorial Prize of the GDCh (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker) |
| 2014 | RSC Main Group Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry |
| 2009 | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the DFG |
Research Funding - Major Grants
| 2018-2022 | DFG Reinhart Kosellek Grant Polyborylene – Constructing a One-Dimensional Boron Chain with Molecular Tools |
| 2016 | German Science Council Research Building, Institute for Sustainable Chemistry & Catalysis with Boron, Founding Director Prof. H. Braunschweig, Co-directors Profs. T. B. Marder, M. Finze |
| 2016-2021 | ERC Advanced Grant 669054 Boron-Boron Multiple Bonding |
| 2011-2016 | ERC Advanced Grant 267155 The Versatile Metal-Boron Multiple Bond |
| 2009-2015 | DFG Leibniz Prize |
Named Lectureships and Lecture Series
| 2024 | M. Frederick Hawthorne Lectureship, University of California Los Angeles (USA) |
| A. Chakravorty Endowment Lectureship, Chem. Research Society of India (IN) | |
| 2023 | Frankland Lectureship, Imperial College London (UK) |
| Margot Becke Lectureship, Univ. Heidelberg (D) | |
| 2022 | Manchot Research Lectureship, TU München (D) |
| 2019 | Leibniz Lecture Tour, IIS Bangalore & IIT Madras(IN) |
| 2018 | JSPS Invitation Fellowship / Lecture Tour of 7 Japanese universities (JP) |
| IOCF Lectureship Award, Universities of Kyoto and Osaka (JP) | |
| 2017 | Leibniz Lecture Tour, Universities of Calgary and Ottawa (CA) |
| Glenn Seaborg Lectureship, University of California Berkeley (USA) | |
| 2016 | Frontiers Lecture Series, Texas A&M (USA) |
| Clemens-Winkler-Kolloquium, TU Bergakademie Freiberg (D) | |
| Inorganic Lecture Series MIT and Harvard, Boston (USA) | |
| 2015 | Inorganic Lecture Series UBC and UVic, Vancouver/Victoria (CA) |
| RSC Main Group Award lecture tour (five UK universities) (UK) | |
| 2014 | Bruker Lectureship, University of Toronto (CA) |
| ScotChem Lecture Tour (lectures at five Scottish universities) (UK) | |
| 2012 | Steinhofer Lectureship, Univ. Freiburg (D) |
| 2009 | Arduengo Lectureship, University of Alabama (USA) |
Employment History
| 2017-current | Senator, University of Würzburg, Würzburg (D) |
| 2016-current | Founding Director of the Institute for Sustainable Chemistry & Catalysis with Boron, Würzburg (D) |
| 2012-current | Head of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Würzburg (D) |
| 2010 | Chair offered at the University of Erlangen (D, declined) |
| 2009-current | Appointed W3 Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Würzburg (D) |
| 2007-2009 | Vicedean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy |
| 2005-2007 | Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy |
| 2004-2005 | Vicedean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy |
| 2002-2009 | Appointed C4 Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Würzburg (D) |
| 2002 | Appointed Reader at Imperial College, London (UK) |
| 2000 | Appointed Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London (UK) |
| 1998 | Appointed Privatdozent at RWTH Aachen (D) |
| 1997 | Habilitation, RWTH Aachen with Prof. P. Paetzold (D) |
| 1991-1992 | Postdoc with Prof. M. F. Lappert (FRS), University of Sussex, Brighton (UK) |
| 1990 | Dr. rer. nat., RWTH Aachen with Prof. P. Paetzold (D) |
A full CV and detailed information regarding the employment history are available at
www.braunschweiggroup.de.
