Professor Wolfram Koch served as the Executive Director of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) from November 1, 2002, to July 31, 2024. The GDCh collaborates closely with Wiley-VCH to publish its prestigious journals, such as Angewandte Chemie, one of the leading international journals in chemistry, and through the growing publishing association Chemistry Europe, in partnership with other European chemical societies, to jointly publish journals including the magazine ChemistryViews and to support scientists.

In this interview, Vera Köster from ChemistryViews speaks with Wolfram Koch about his reflections on this remarkable period.

 

You have shown great commitment to scientific publishing and the promotion of chemistry through your work and many honorary activities. Looking back on 20 years of cooperation between the GDCh and Wiley-VCH, what are the first phrases or keywords that come to your mind?

Well, first of all, the close and very long-standing partnership of high quality, characterized by mutual respect, which is the second and also very important thing. The third keyword, which is the last one I mention, but equally important, is success.

 

What are the most successful achievements or moments you like to remember?

I think the many launches of new journals within Chemistry Europe are certainly among those big achievements. I really like to remember all the signing ceremonies that we had, and the optimism that was connected to all of these events.

Other things, which I think have really been very important milestones were, for example, the relaunch of Chemistry Europe in 2020, when we sort of abolished the old name, ChemPubSoc Europe, which was clumsy and difficult to pronounce and no one really understood what it meant. Through a long but also very well structured process, we finally arrived at Chemistry Europe, a change that I will always remember.

Another thing I like to think back are the Angewandte Chemie Symposia, particularly those held outside Germany. I clearly remember the ones in Japan and China, which were truly wonderful experiences, as well as the symposium in Korea, which was also very enjoyable. The delegations from Germany, the scientists we had on board, and the hosting societies all contributed to making these events a fantastic experience.

Of course, there are many more memories, and with more time, I could easily talk about them for an hour.

 

No wonder—20 years and countless projects. I also remember that virtual events were an adventurous novelty in logistics and technology back then, not as easy and common as they are today.

Could you briefly explain, for those who may not be familiar, the nature of the collaborations you just mentioned—such as Angewandte Chemie and Chemistry Europe, along with journals like CIT, CET, CHIUZ, CHEMKON, and the Verlagsbeirat (Editorial Board)—and how they work in practice?

On the surface, this mainly involves meetings. We usually have at least one meeting per year, where representatives from the publisher’s side and those from the GDCh, or for Chemistry Europe, the owner societies as a whole, come together. These meetings, particularly in the past, focused mainly on reporting; so the publisher explained the performance of specific journals over the previous 12 months, followed by discussions.

Informally, however, there is much more interaction, because we have always been in close contact with the team in Weinheim responsible for the different projects. I remember numerous phone calls and, more recently, video calls in between those meetings. So I think it was always a lively and very close relationship, which I think is one of the pillars of the success.

 

How much time did that take out of your overall responsibilities as executive director?

It’s, of course, difficult to say exactly, because the time commitment varied. The preparation for major meetings took more time. On average, though, it was a significant portion of my time in the office, I would say that about 25 to 30% of my time is probably a good estimate.

 

And what makes this important for the GDCh and its members?

There are many aspects to it. The one, and probably most important one, is that scientific publishing is one of our statutory tasks, as outlined in our Constitution. Therefore, even if we wouldn’t like to do it, we would have to do it. It is a service to the community that dates back to the very beginning of our society.

The Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft, the first predecessor organization of the German Chemical Society, was founded in 1867; just one year later, in 1868, the journal Chemische Berichte was launched to serve the need of the community, so that we as a scientific society could provide the means for a trustworthy and reliable distribution of scientific information, that, in addition, was also not guided in the first instance by economic reasoning, but again, as a service to the community.

scientific publishing is one of our statutory tasks, as outlined in our Constitution

When the second predecessor organization of the now GDCh, the Verein Deutscher Chemiker, was founded in 1887, it immediately launched Angewandte Chemie. Both journals still exist today: Angewandte Chemie under that title, and Chemische Berichte is now the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. That shows how important publishing always has been.

There is also the economic side of it. It’s no secret that we receive royalties from these journals, which make up a substantial part of GDCh’s income. Therefore, it is also important to us for this very profane reason. All this money goes back to the community and helps the GDCh to achieve its goals to support the chemical community.

The third aspect that has become more and more important over the past 30 years is the interaction with our partner societies. I’m referring to Chemistry Europe and the journals we jointly publish, as well as the 16 partner societies which make up Chemistry Europe, as of today. This also has a very important and significant political aspect, in that it represents a genuine European approach and serves as a vehicle for these societies to strengthen their collaboration. I believe this has been extremely helpful over the past decades, since Chemistry Europe was founded in 1995, albeit under a different name.

it [Chemistry Europe] represents a genuine European approach and serves as a vehicle for these societies to strengthen their collaboration

 

How did what is now Chemistry Europe start and what motivated you to develop Chemistry Europe further and help connect the European societies?

I should first say that it wasn’t me who started all of this. It was in the mid-1990s, at a time when I was still a professor at the Technical University in Berlin, teaching and doing science myself. Actually, I just looked it up—I published my first paper in Chemistry – A European Journal back in 1997, so that was at the very beginning of the journal [1].

When I later joined the GDCh at the end of the 1990s and into the early 2000s, I was, of course, also influenced by my predecessor, Heindrik tom Dieck, who was one of the founders of this idea, along with Jean-Marie Lehn, Heinrich Nöth, and others.

Very soon, I found out that this is really something remarkable. It has something to do with what I mentioned earlier, that Chemistry Europe, or these joint journals, have a very deep European foundation. All the societies that make up Chemistry Europe now are also members of EuChemS, but I can clearly say that the interaction we, as GDCh, have with those EuChemS member societies who are also part of Chemistry Europe is much more intense and, I would say, is much deeper. We not only share things that we do within EuChemS, which is mostly directed towards the European Union and to the bodies in Brussels, so about politics.

In Chemistry Europe, we work together on a different level. It’s not only the economic side of the journals, it’s also focusing on questions like: What is good for our communities in terms of disseminating scientific content? What do we do to really make our members happy? What do they expect from us? Discussing this with the 15 other societies and exchanging views, which sometimes differ quite a bit, is exciting and fruitful. Through these discussions, we come to conclusions that might not have surfaced otherwise. I think this is what really makes a difference, and is one of the reasons why I have always been very impressed and convinced that this project is really worth investing time and sometimes also investing money in. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, as we all know.

In particular, during the starting phase, the GDCh invested a significant amount of money in this initiative, with the intention of involving other societies. Again, I wasn’t the driving force behind this, as I wasn’t yet with the GDCh. However, one of the reasons Chemistry – A European Journal was founded by the GDCh was to promote wider participation. The journal originally belonged 100% to the GDCh, but over time, we offered shares to other societies. As a result, we have built a family of now 16 societies. This process is still ongoing; the Swiss Chemical Society joined about 10 or 12 years ago.

All this is what I mean when I say that it really is a true European project.

 

And it’s growing beyond the journals as well, with initiatives like the Chemistry Europe Award, the Fellows Program, virtual events …

You’re absolutely right. These are things that have developed over time. In the beginning, it was only about journals. Then, we increasingly realized that we needed to broaden the portfolio of things we could offer to the community. Again, the main question is: What do our members expect from us?

ChemistryViews is, of course, one of the things—as you know very well—that falls into this category. I believe it was one of the first initiatives where we expanded beyond just publishing journals. With all of these offers, we aim to strengthen our collaboration on one hand, while on the other, we seek to engage with our members and the broader chemical community at large, to also make it visible what Chemistry Europe means.

As mentioned, a few years ago, we went through the process of relaunching Chemistry Europe, and one of the major outcomes was that we gave ourselves a vision and mission that is clearly about more than just publishing journals. Of course, publishing remains at the core of what Chemistry Europe does, but the overarching goal is to support every chemical scientist at every stage of his or her career.

the overarching goal is to support every chemical scientist at every stage of his or her career

 

These are very complex topics that require lots of knowledge of publishing. From what I’ve seen, you have always played an important role in, for example, the Chemistry Europe owners’ meetings, providing clear and forward-looking input. Where do you get your knowledge from? Also, was your background as a professor in academia and having seen the other side of publishing helpful?

That was definitely helpful because I didn’t come to this totally out of the blue. Having worked as a scientist for many years, I also had the experience of being an author, a reader of scientific literature, and a referee. So, when I delved deeper into publishing, I could understand what others were talking about. Of course, from a different perspective, since as an author you have a different point of view than when you are the owner or publisher of a journal, but the language is the same, and the experience helped. I would definitely say that was a big advantage for me, even though, on the other hand, many things I learned were really learning by doing. I had the privilege of interacting with many people, both from the Weinheim side and from peers who were older and more experienced than I was at that time, especially in terms of the publishing aspect.

Additionally, I really benefited from the discussions. At my first meeting with Chemistry Europe, which was in 2002 if I remember correctly, I didn’t have many clues of what the issues really were. But that, of course, changed year by year as I was confronted with many of these problems, challenges, and questions, and had to deal with them. I also have to admit that it was fun. It was really interesting to learn how the system works and to discover challenges that, as an author, I never had on my screen. And of course, when at the end of the day, you see that most of the things we did were successful, that certainly adds to the fun and motivation to go deeper into the topic.

 

Over the past 20 years, there have been many changes in the composition of those attending the meetings with Wiley-VCH and the societies. How did you manage these constant changes? And how did you navigate differing views to move things forward with so many diverse stakeholders?

I would say that the most important thing in that group, including the publisher, is that we always treat one another with great respect, and in many cases, I would even call it friendship. So, even when differences of opinion arise—as they naturally do—they never lead to a serious conflict.

There were one or two times when the discussions were more intense, and in the middle of the meeting, I honestly didn’t know where we would end up, but we always reached a compromise that everyone could accept. It was a give-and-take process, and the kind of discussions we had within and between the societies made that possible—something the publisher had no role in. Of course, there were times when we had a different perspective compared to the people from Weinheim, but in both cases, we always arrived at peaceful, amicable, and in the end beneficial solutions for everyone. I believe this was one of the most important pillars of the success of the collaboration.

And, of course, as you say, there are 16 societies and a big publisher involved. The societies vary greatly, with some having only a few hundred members, while the GDCh has 30,000. Most societies sent volunteers as their representatives to the Chemistry Europe meetings since they don’t have staff for such tasks. We, along with a few others, are different because we have staff, and in my case, I had the advantage of being able to dedicate more time to the issues related to Chemistry Europe. This sometimes meant I knew more than others, but it never led to a situation that the others said, “Oh, the Germans are trying to dominate”. We always operated from a foundation of mutual trust, which is not something you can take for granted. It has to develop and I think over time, we all realized we could trust each other and that we are in the same boat, even if we do not agree on every detail. The basic understanding was the same for all of us, and that makes a difference.

We always operated from a foundation of mutual trust, which is not something you can take for granted. It has to develop over time

 

Angewandte Chemie is the flagship journal of the GDCh and has evolved from being a purely German-language publication to becoming a leading international chemistry journal. Can you say a bit about the work being done there and what drives the journal’s success?

Well, I think success often has many fathers or mothers. In the early days, when I was also an author publishing in Angewandte Chemie, much of the credit goes to the team in Weinheim, who paved the way for its success. Peter Gölitz, in particular, was a key figure, thanks to the many innovations he introduced and the personal networks he and others cultivated over the years.

Now that we have changed the way Angewandte Chemie operates, the interaction between the GDCh, as the owner of the journal, and Wiley-VCH (for many years VCH), as the publisher, has become much stronger. In the past, the GDCh Board didn’t care a lot, as long as royalties arrived on time, which they always did. The only interface was the Kuratorium, a group of 25–30 people that met once a year. These meetings focused on statistics, such as submissions to Angewandte Chemie, but there was little strategic input coming from the GDCh.

This has now changed. We have established the Angewandte Chemie Council, which is a strategically important body where we discuss key aspects of the journal’s development with representatives from Wiley-VCH. By this, also the scientific membership of the GDCh is much better represented and positioned to give input, and also to mention aspects that might not be so obvious for a publisher. A publisher naturally has a different perspective, while scientists bring their own perspective. Having both at the table to exchange views, allows for meaningful exchanges and joint conclusions that serve the community well. This new approach makes me very optimistic about the continued success and bright future of Angewandte Chemie.

 

Yes, that’s what we all wish for.

Yes, of course. f you look at the impact factors—which, yes, we shouldn’t place too much importance on but still serve as a useful parameter—we have seen significant progress in recent years. We have now overtaken JACS, which was already the case a few years ago, but due to a technical adjustment at Clarivate, we briefly fell behind. Now, we are back on track, and I think this is something we, and especially those people in Weinheim who have the greatest responsibility for the journal’s quality, can be very proud of.

 

Thank you.

What has contributed to the strong partnership between GDCh and Wiley-VCH over the years?

As I said at the beginning, it was always a very good and positive partnership—more than just a business relationship. This was often due to the personal connections between the people working in Weinheim and those in Frankfurt, which is still the case today, and that helps. When you call someone you know personally and have had the pleasure of sharing a glass of wine or similar moments with, it just makes things easier.

Another contributing factor to the quality of the relationship is, of course, the shared history. As we know, Verlag Chemie (VCH) was founded more than 100 years ago by our predecessor organizations, and we owned parts of VCH until about 30 years ago. There’s an emotional element to this connection—though I don’t want to sound overly sentimental—which also plays into the quality of the relationship.

Additionally, the close proximity of Weinheim to Frankfurt, just about an hour’s drive, makes a difference. When important issues arise, it’s much easier to just sit at the table somewhere in Weinheim or Frankfurt than to rely on phone calls or other remote communication. So I think all these different things contribute to this good partnership, and I see no reason why that should change.

 

You played an important part in many strategic visions and developments. Do you have any words for your successor, Tom Kinzel, and perhaps for the colleagues at the publisher and/or the other societies?

I think what we should always keep in mind, and should be very careful not to change, is that this partnership is not only about business and economics; it is about sharing a common vision and a common goal. If we were to focus solely on things like the percentage of royalties or the first number after the decimal point, we would miss the point. We should always be aware of, and continue to emphasize, that our shared goal is the most important target. That would be my recommendation to Tom Kinzel, but also to everyone else involved, be it in Weinheim or Frankfurt.

All of these meetings have nice time slots for socializing, for, you know, having a glass of wine together, or having dinner together. I think one cannot overestimate how important that is, so that you just have the possibility of talking to people and not talking about journals, but talking about completely other things.

And when I have been able to make a contribution, it makes me happy and proud.

this partnership is not only about business and economics; it is about sharing a common vision and a common goal

 

And what would you like to see happening in the coming years?

Well, of course, that our journals remain successful or become even more successful, that we are able to also launch new journals where they are needed.

Another point is that we successfully manage to make the switch to open access, despite all the challenges it presents. This has been an ongoing process for, I don’t know, 6, 7, or 8 years now, and still, most of our journals are subscription-based or hybrid-based, for good reasons.

Another thing I would like to see is the continuation of what we’ve already started, as we mentioned earlier—going beyond publishing within our partnership. We need to identify new initiatives, apart from those already in place, where the societies, together with the publisher, can develop products, in quotation marks, that meet the expectations of the community. If this happens, it will also benefit us as an organization, increase the visibility of Chemistry Europe, and ultimately do something good for our members.

 

And one last question: What do you have more time for now?

Well, since I’m still in the learning phase of dealing with this new situation, I can’t give a definitive answer just yet. However, what I’ve realized is that, in terms of publications, I’m now shifting more to the reader’s side. I have more time to read, not necessarily scientific stuff, but also books I enjoy and haven’t had the chance to read before— and that is fun. It’s refreshing to simply sit down for an hour and read.

Additionally, my wife and I have begun taking short trips, which I wouldn’t have been able to do previously due to time constraints. So there are many things which I can imagine that will become more and more important in the years to come.

 

Thank you for the interview, and we wish you all the best.

 

Reference

[1] Roland H. Hertwig, Katrin Seemeyer, Helmut Schwarz, Wolfram Koch, The Origin of the Remarkable Regioselectivity of Fe⁺-Mediated Dehydrogenation in Benzocycloalkenes, Chem. Eur. J. 1997. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.19970030819

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Wolfram Koch was born in Darmstadt, Germany, and studied chemistry at Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (now Technische Universität Darmstadt) and Technische Universität (TU) Berlin, Germany. He received his Ph.D. from TU Berlin in 1986 under the supervision of Helmut Schwarz. From 1987–1988, he was an IBM Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Computational Chemistry, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA, USA. In 1988, he became a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Supercomputing and Applied Mathematics at IBM Germany’s Scientific Center in Heidelberg. In 1992, Wolfram Koch returned to TU Berlin as Professor of Theoretical Organic Chemistry. Here, at the age of 32, he was the youngest professor.

From 1998 to 2000, he served as Department Head at the GDCh in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and led the office of the BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) project “Global Info – The German Digital Library Project”. From 2000 to 2002, he was GDCh Director of “Science and Research”.

From 2002 to 2020, Wolfram Koch has served as Executive Director of the “Deutscher Zentralausschuss für Chemie” (DZfCh, German adhering organization to IUPAC) and from 2002 to 2024 as GDCh Executive Director.

Among many other honors, Wolfram Koch has received the Schering-Award for best dissertation in chemistry in 1987, the Gold Medal of the Slovak Chemical Society in 2002, and the Goldene Ehrennadel (badge of honor) of the VAA (association of managers in the chemical industry) in 2019. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), an Honorary Member of the Czech Chemical Society (ČSCH), the Israel Chemical Society (ICS) and the Slovenian Chemical Society (SCS) and is an Honorary Fellow of Chemistry Europe.

Wolfram Koch is the author of approximately 190 publications in scientific journals and a textbook on density functional theory. During his time as Executive Director of the GDCh, he has shown great commitment to scientific publishing and the promotion of chemistry through his work and numerous honorary activities.

 

Selected Publications

• Wolfram Koch, Max C. Holthausen, A Chemist’s Guide to Density Functional Theory, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany 2001. ISBN: 978-3-527-30372-4
• Anja Pfletschinger, Wolfram Koch, Hans-Günther Schmalz, Density Functional Investigation of Reactive Intermediates Derived from Alkyne–Co₂(CO)₆ Complexes, Chem. Eur. J. 2001. https://doi.org/10.1002/1521-3765(20011217)7:24<5325::AID-CHEM5325>3.0.CO;2-S
• Florian Ausfelder, Christian Beilmann, Martin Bertau, Sigmar Bräuninger, Angelika Heinzel, Renate Hoer, Wolfram Koch, Falko Mahlendorf, Anja Metzelthin, Marcell Peuckert, Ludolf Plass, Konstantin Räuchle, Martin Reuter, Georg Schaub, Sebastian Schiebahn, Ekkehard Schwab, Ferdi Schüth, Detlef Stolten, Gisa Teßmer, Kurt Wagemann, Karl-Friedrich Ziegahn, Energy Storage as Part of a Secure Energy Supply, ChemBioEng Rev. 2017, 4, 144–210. https://doi.org/10.1002/cben.201700004
• Wolfram Koch, Ethics and chemistry: the role of learned societies, as exemplified by the German chemical societies, Toxicol. Environ. Chem. 2015, 98, 1060–1066. https://doi.org/10.1080/02772248.2015.1094474
• Florian Ausfelder, Christian Beilmann, Martin Bertau, Sigmar Bräuninger, Angelika Heinzel, Renate Hoer, Wolfram Koch, Falko Mahlendorf, Anja Metzelthin, Marcell Peuckert, Ludolf Plass, Konstantin Räuchle, Martin Reuter, Georg Schaub, Sebastian Schiebahn, Ekkehard Schwab, Ferdi Schüth, Detlef Stolten, Gisa Teßmer, Kurt Wagemann, Karl-Friedrich Ziegahn, Energiespeicherung als Element einer sicheren Energieversorgung, Chem. Ing. Tech. 2015, 87, 17–89. https://doi.org/10.1002/cite.201400183
• Jeremy N. Harvey, Massimiliano Aschi, Helmut Schwarz, Wolfram Koch, The singlet and triplet states of phenyl cation. A hybrid approach for locating minimum energy crossing points between non-interacting potential energy surfaces, Theor. Chem. Acc. 1998, 99, 95–99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002140050309
• Roland H. Hertwig, Wolfram Koch, On the parameterization of the local correlation functional. What is Becke-3-LYP?, Chem. Phys. Lett. 1997, 268, 345–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0009-2614(97)00207-8
• Wolfram Koch, Gernot Frenking, Juergen Gauss, Dieter Cremer, Jack R. Collins, Helium chemistry: theoretical predictions and experimental challenge, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1987, 109, 5917–5934. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00254a005
• Wolfram Koch, Francis Maquin, Helmut Schwarz, Daniel Stahl, Experimental and ab initio molecular orbital studies on CH₃O^2+. dications, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1985, 107(8), 2256–2260. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00294a008

A shorter version of the article was published in February in Bogen, Wiley-VCH’s employee magazine.

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