Exploring the structure and functioning of a new catalyst for the water-gas shift (WGS) reaction — a combination of carbon monoxide with water to form carbon dioxide and hydrogen — is of particular importance for the efficient generation of hydrogen by means of environmentally-friendly technologies. This is the line of research followed by Dr. Loschen, the first holder of a fellowship awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation, who has recently joined the Departament de Química Física at the UB’s Faculty of Chemistry.

Christoph Loschen (Marburg University, Germany), an expert in theoretical chemistry who received his doctorate in 2005, has been awarded a fellowship via the AvH Feodor Lynen Program, which provides funding for highly talented young German researchers. Dr. Loschen began his scientific collaboration with the UB, which may last for up to four years, on 1 April 2006. Dr. Loschen’s work at the UB’s Departament de Química Física will be coordinated by two senior faculty members: Professor Konstantin Neyman of the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), who was himself the recipient of an AvH research fellowship at the Technische Universität München in Germany, and Professor Francesc Illas, Director of the Centre for Research in Theoretical Chemistry based in the Barcelona Scientific Park, who received a Special Award from the Generalitat de Catalonia for the promotion of university research in 2001 and the Real Sociedad Española de Química’s Bruker Prize for Physical Chemistry in 2004.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is a non-profit organization which promotes scientific activity on an international scale. It was founded in 1953, on the basis of an existing institution that had been set up in Berlin in 1860 in memory of the renowned German naturalist.

Each year the Foundation enables more than 1,800 scientists from around the world, not resident in Germany, to carry out work at German research centres. Once their work is complete the Foundation continues to foster the scientific collaborations they have begun. The Foundation maintains a network of over 22,000 experts from different disciplines in 130 countries, among whom there are 40 Nobel Prize holders (five of them in the year 2005).

Furthermore, via its open competition system the AvH Foundation offers young German researchers the opportunity to conduct their postdoctoral studies in universities and prestigious research centres around the world. The work is always carried out in collaboration with a member of the “Humboldt family”. This initiative enables the Foundation to facilitate the mobility of young researchers and foster innovation and the development of new ideas at the international level.

In the context of the UB the AvH Foundation has for many years promoted scientific collaboration in areas such as biology, genetics, physics, mathematics, pharmacology, microbiology, history and law by enabling scientists from different Departments to take up temporary posts in research centres in Germany and other countries. The Foundation has also recognized the research careers of experts from the UB through the award of internationally renowned prizes, for example, those given to Professor Ramon Margalef of the Department of Ecology (Alexander von Humboldt Award, 1990) and to Professor Miquel Rubí of the Department of Fundamental Physics (Alexander von Humboldt-J.C. Mutis Research Award, 2003).