Research

Our research covers the entire range of chemistry, from pure basic research to application-oriented topics. Many projects are externally funded. According to the latest figures, the Faculty secures more than 9 million euros in third-party funding every year, which nearly doubles its regular budget. The Faculty of Chemistry is a member of many coordinated, national research alliances, including five DFG Collaborative Research Centres (CRC), three DFG Priority Programmes (PP) and one NRW Forschungskolleg. Four of these alliances are managed and coordinated by our Faculty. We also coordinate several EU projects fully or partially, one of them being an ERC Advanced Grant in the field of environmental microbiology and biotechnology. This is in addition to many other projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AiF), the Volkswagen foundation and various industry players.

Our research is concentrated in four key areas: supramolecular chemistry with a focus on issues in biology and materials science, nanosciences with a focus on heterogeneous catalysis and energy research, water research, empirical educational research. With its expertise in these areas, our faculty is an important contributor to three of the five main research areas of the University of Duisburg-Essen. Several central academic institutes of the University are managed by members of our faculty: the Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), the Centre for Teacher Education (ZLB) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Educational Research (IZfB). Two external institutes are associated with the Faculty: the Deutsche Textilforschungszentrum Nordwest (DTNW) in Krefeld and the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wasserforschung (IWW) in Mülheim. Both specialise in practical, application-oriented research. Members of our faculty hold positions as academic directors at the DTNW (Professor Jochen S. Gutmann) and the IWW (Professor Rainer U. Meckenstock and Professor Torsten C. Schmidt).