The Eugen and Ilse Seibold Prize has been presented to Kazuyuki Tatsumi, Nagoya University, Japan, and Gerhard Erker, University of Münster, Germany, at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin, Germany. The award is presented every two years by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) to one Japanese and one German researcher.
The award is named after marine geologist and former DFG President Professor Eugen Seibold and his wife. It is awarded alternately to researchers working in the humanities and social sciences and in the natural sciences.
Tatsumi (right) and Erker (left) receive the award in recognition of their contributions as promoters of understanding between Japan and Germany and as long-term advocates for science. The research duo founded of the first Japanese-German Research Training Group, “Complex Functional Systems in Chemistry: Design, Development and Applications”, which has been funded jointly by the DFG and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science since 2006. The Erker/Tatsumi team is the first research team to be awarded the prize.
