In 1892, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft (DChG), one of the predecessor organizations of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, German Chemical Society), Alexander Crum Brown, President of the society wrote “the DChG … has done so much to render possible the ultimate denationalization of chemical science …”. 125 years later, the GDCh marked its 150th anniversary and this message is still as relevant as ever.

In their Editorial in Angewandte Chemie, Sir John Holman (pictured), President of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), London, UK, and Edwin Silvester, RSC, talk about the long-standing friendship between the GDCh and the RSC, which was marked in 2017 with a renewed Memorandum of Understanding. They emphasize that scientists should be free to cross borders, and how much researchers can learn from travelling and meeting peers. This matters even now that we have the internet, because humans work best when they can interact personally.

International collaboration can lead to innovative solutions for globally relevant problems such as drought-resistant crops and solar cells. Strong science will benefit the global population, and we need to continually make this very clear to governments around the world.

• Chemistry Has No Nationality,
  John Holman, Edwin Silvester,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018.
  https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201802775