The Liebig Association for Organic Chemistry in the German Chemical Society awards the ORCHEM Prize every two years to young scientists who have distinguished themselves through new, original and pioneering scientific work in the field of organic chemistry and have not yet held a leadership position for several years.
The prize is endowed with EUR 5000,- and is supported by BASF . It is usually awarded to two people and includes an award certificate and prize money of € 2500 per person.
The ORCHEM Prize is traditionally awarded at the ORCHEM conference. The prize winners present the results of their award-winning work in a lecture.
The Liebig Association for Organic Chemistry in the Society of German Chemists is once again inviting applications for the ORCHEM Prize to be awarded in 2026. The prize is supported by BASF and will be awarded at the ORCHEM conference, which will take place in Freiburg from 7 to 9 September 2026.
The prize is awarded to young scientists who have distinguished themselves through new, original and pioneering scientific work in the field and who have not yet held a leadership position for several years.
Persons from academia and industry are eligible to apply. Self-applications are expressly encouraged. The Executive Board of the Liebig Association decides on the selection. The prize is usually awarded to two people and includes an award certificate and prize money of €2,500 per person.
The meaningful application / proposal must include a CV with a list of publications and a short synopsis of the scientific work. Applications and proposals are requested exclusively in electronic form by 30 March 2026 to the GDCh office, n.buerger@gdch.de.Locations and academic titles at the time of the award ceremony
Dr Malte Gersch,Dortmund University of Technology, in recognition of his fundamental and pioneering work on the investigation of proteolytic enzymes of the ubiquitin system.
Dr Golo Storch, Technical University of Munich, in recognition of his fundamental and pioneering work in the field of organic photochemistry, in particular the investigation of flavin systems in molecular photocatalysis.
Dr Johannes Broichhagen, Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie Berlin in recognition of his work on the development of new molecular tools to answer important questions in the life sciences.
Jun.-Prof. Dr Max Hansmann, Technical University of Dortmund in recognition of his fundamental and pioneering work in the synthesis and characterisation of reactive intermediates and the development of organic redox systems.
Dr Josep Cornella (Mülheim a. d. Ruhr) in recognition of his pioneering work on redox catalysis with bismuth.
Prof. Dr Philipp Heretsch (Berlin) in recognition of his highly acclaimed work on the synthesis of steroids and terpenes.
Priv.-Doz. Dr Florian Beuerle (Würzburg) in recognition of his innovative and highly regarded work in the field of dynamic covalent chemistry on the construction of highly defined cage compounds and two-dimensional π-conjugated polymer materials.
Jun.-Prof. Dr Ivana Fleischer (Tübingen) in recognition of her innovative and highly regarded work in the field of selective functionalisation of olefins and carboxylic acid derivatives and resource-efficient catalysis with non-precious metals.
Prof. Dr Olga Garcia Mancheño (Regensburg) in recognition of her innovative and highly regarded work on the topic of "Novel Synthetic Methods based on C-H bonds & Modern Catalysis for Sustainable Synthesis".
Dr Thomas Magauer (Munich) in recognition of his highly acclaimed and innovative work on the topic of "Natural Products as a Rich Source for Pharmaceuticals and Inspiration for Innovative Chemical Transformations".
Prof. Dr Franziska Schoenebeck (Aachen) in recognition of her innovative and highly regarded theoretical and experimental studies on reaction mechanisms, in particular palladium-catalysed reactions
Prof. Dr Daniel Werz (Braunschweig) in recognition of his highly regarded and innovative work on the chemistry of carbohydrates and the synthesis of heterocycles via donor-acceptor cyclopropanes
Prof. Dr Christian Hackenberger (Berlin) in recognition of his highly regarded and innovative work on chemoselective ligation and the efficient synthesis of protein-protein and protein-carbohydrate conjugates
Prof. Dr Axel Jacobi von Wangelin(Regensburg) in recognition of his highly regarded and innovative work on iron-catalysed coupling reactions and on metal-, organo- and photocatalytic syntheses of carbo- and heterocycles
Dr Hans-Dieter Arndt (Dortmund) in recognition of his highly regarded contributions to synthesis-based chemical biology, in particular his organic-synthetic and molecular biological work in the field of cyclic thiopeptide antibiotics
Prof. Dr Nicolai Cramer (Zurich) in recognition of his highly regarded and innovative work on selective transition metal-catalysed bond activation under ring opening and the efficient synthesis of complex natural and active substances
Dr Peter Spiteller (Munich) in recognition of his highly acclaimed work on the isolation and structural elucidation of novel metabolites of higher fungi and their ecological function in defence against predators
Prof. Dr Magnus Rueping (Frankfurt a. M.) in recognition of his pioneering contributions in the highly competitive field of organocatalysis, in particular his work on enantioselective BrØnsted acid catalysis
Dr. Lutz Ackermann (Munich) in recognition of his highly acclaimed development of air-stable phosphine oxides as preligands for Pd-, Ni- and Ru-catalysed cross-coupling reactions of chloroaromatics
Prof. Dr Martin Oestreich (Münster) in recognition of his innovative contributions to asymmetric synthesis, in particular with the aid of bicyclic organosilicon compounds with Si-based chirality
Dr Frank Glorius (Mülheim) in recognition of his design of bis(oxazoline)-derived carbene ligands for organometallic catalysis and his asymmetric hydrogenation of chirally modified pyridines
Priv.-Doz. Dr Hans-Joachim Wagenknecht (Garching) in recognition of his investigations into the mechanism of novel charge transfer processes initiated by reduction through DNA
Prof. Dr A. Stephen K. Hashmi (Stuttgart) in recognition of his contributions to homogeneous gold catalysis of organic reactions and to the chemistry of metallacycloalkanes
Dr Michael Müller (Jülich) in recognition of his work on the development of enantioselective enzymatic syntheses
Dr Dr Clemens Richert (Constance) in recognition of his original contributions to the molecular recognition of nucleic acid structures, in particular his work on "molecular caps", which point to new ways of developing active substances
Dr Stefan Bräse (Aachen) in recognition of his outstanding contributions to organic solid-phase synthesis, which opens up new possibilities for the development of biologically active compounds