Stefan Grimme Awarded the 2025 Chemistry Europe Award

January 15, 2025 — Chemistry Europe, an association of 16 chemical societies from 15 European countries that publishes a family of high-quality scholarly journals and the magazine ChemistryViews, recognizes outstanding contributions to chemistry with its prestigious and highly endowed Chemistry Europe Award. The 2025 Chemistry Europe Award will go to Stefan Grimme, Professor at the University of Bonn, Germany, who is being honored “for his groundbreaking contributions that have had a profound impact on the scientific community”. The award ceremony will be held in July, during the 50th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress (IUPAC 2025) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Stefan Grimme will receive the award there and give a lecture.

Professor Grimme is a globally recognized leader in the field of theoretical and computational chemistry. One of his most significant achievements lies in his advancement of Density Functional Theory (DFT). His work on improving the accuracy of DFT methods through the development of dispersion-corrected DFT-Dx (x=1-4) has been transformative.

His DFT-Dx methods have been widely adopted by researchers globally, bridging the gap between theoretical predictions and experimental data. Due to its accuracy and minimal computational cost, the DFT-D3 method has established itself as a standard method in quantum chemistry. Grimme’s three highest cited papers (on DFT-Dx) have each been cited tens of thousands of times. Grimme has also developed computationally efficient DFT based methods (e.g., extended tight-binding methods such as GFN2-xTB, as well as the general purpose force field GFN-FF), allowing accurate calculations on larger systems or large configuration spaces of flexible molecules or clusters.

Grimme also developed the CREST program, which is a powerful tool to locate the most relevant minima on the potential energy surface, and CENSO, for the efficient optimization and evaluation of structure ensembles. Other chemical method developments include theoretical NMR, UV and mass spectrometry.

Stefan Grimme studied chemistry at the University of Braunschweig, Germany, where he received his Ph.D. in 1991. He completed his habilitation at the University of Bonn in 1997 and became Lecturer there in 1999. In 2000, Grimme joined the University of Münster, Germany, as Professor for Theoretical Organic Chemistry. He returned to Bonn as Professor for Theoretical Chemistry in 2011.

Grimme has received numerous awards, such as the 2015 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the highest honor awarded in German research, and the 2013 Schrödinger Medal from the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC), which honors outstanding theoretical and computational chemists.

The Chemistry Europe Award is presented every two years, focusing on a specific topic each time. The theme for 2025 is Theoretical/Computational Chemistry. The award includes prize money of EUR 10,000 and a certificate, and is open to both members and non-members of Chemistry Europe societies from all nations.

About Chemistry Europe

Founded in 1995, Chemistry Europe is an association of 16 chemical societies from 15 European countries, representing over 75,000 chemists. It publishes a family of high-quality scholarly chemistry journals, covering a very broad range of disciplines, and the science magazine ChemistryViews. Wiley-VCH is their publisher.

Chemistry Europe supports its members at every stage of their careers as they strive to solve the challenges that impact humankind. In all its work, Chemistry Europe values integrity, openness, diversity, cooperation, and freedom of thought. https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

Participating Societies: Association of Greek Chemists, Greece | (EEX); Česká společnost chemická, Czech Republic | (ČSCH); Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, Germany | (GDCh); Koninklijke Nederlandse Chemische Vereniging, The Netherlands | (KNCV); Koninklijke Vlaamse Chemische Vereniging, Belgium | (KVCV); Magyar Kémikusok Egyesülete, Hungary | (MKE); Österreichische Chemische Gesellschaft, Austria | (GÖCH); Polskie Towarzystwo Chemiczne, Poland | (PTChem); Real Sociedad Española de Química, Spain | (RSEQ); Slovenská Chemická Spoloćnosť, Slovakia | (SCS); Sociedade Portuguesa de Química, Portugal | (SPQ); Società Chimica Italiana, Italy | (SCI); Société Chimique de France, France | (SCF) ; Société Royale de Chimie, Belgium | (SRC) ; Svenska Kemisamfundet, Sweden | (SK); Swiss Chemical Society, Switzerland | (SCS).

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