Karl Ziegler Foundation

Here you can find the current call for proposals for the Karl Ziegler Prize 2025.

The nomination deadline is March 1, 2025.

All information about the Karl Ziegler Young Scientist Award can be found here.

Karl Ziegler Foundation

The Karl Ziegler Foundation was set up in 1993 as a dependent foundation at the German Chemical Society and made public in 1998 on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the namesake through the first foundation activities. The founder is the daughter of Karl Ziegler, Dr. Marianne Witte, who established this foundation in memory of her father, the 1963 Nobel Prize winner, Professor Dr. Dres. hc Karl Ziegler (1898 - 1973), established.

The Karl Ziegler Award , worth EUR 50,000 and a gold medal, is one of the most highly endowed German awards in the field of chemistry.

Since 1998, the foundation has also given preference to the Karl Ziegler sponsorship prizes for younger scientists. The Karl Ziegler Advancement Young Scientist Award was realigned in 2022. With the award, the foundation enables junior research group leaders to finance a postdoc for one year. All Karl Ziegler awardee should be active in the broad research fields of the namesake; that is both inorganic and organic chemistry, catalysis and polymer chemistry.

Karl Ziegler was the first chairman of the German Chemical Society after it was founded.

awardee since 1998

awardee of the Karl Ziegler Promotional Prize

Karl Ziegler Award until 1992

The Karl Ziegler Prize was originally set up at the GDCh in 1974 to honor special merits in the field of organometallic chemistry. The prize, financed jointly by Hoechst AG and Hüls AG, was awarded to seven scientists from Germany and abroad between 1975 and 1992.

In 1998, on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the 1963 Nobel Prize laureate, the Karl Ziegler Award was taken over by the foundation of the same name, managed in trust by the GDCh and managed by Dr. Marianne Witte (1923 - 2012), daughter of Karl Ziegler, was established (see Karl Ziegler Foundation).

Holder of the Karl Ziegler Prize

1975
Georg Wittig, Heidelberg

1978
Günther Wilke, Mülheim / Ruhr

1981
Jürgen Smidt, Munich
Walter Hafner, Munich

1987
Dieter Seebach, Zurich / Switzerland

1989
Jean-Marie Lehn, Strasbourg / France

1992
Malcolm LH Green, Oxford / England

foundation's advisory board

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Dehnen, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, GDCh President 2024 & 2025 (Chair)
Prof. Dr. Dieter Jahn, Hamburg (for the donor family)
Prof. Dr. Barbara Albert, Technical University of Darmstadt
Prof. Dr. Angelika Brückner, Leibniz Institute for Catalysis Rostock
Dr. Tom Kinzel, GDCh Executive Director
Prof. Dr. Ferdi Schüth, Max Planck Institute for Coal Research
Prof. Dr. Brigitte Voit, Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research Dresden