27 February 2009, No. 06/2009

Another four Alexander von Humboldt Professors selected

Amongst them, the first humanities scholars and social scientists

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has selected the first four Alexander von Humboldt Professors of 2009. A classicist, a mathematician, a quantum physicist and an economist are the recipients of the international award for research in Germany which is valued at up to five million EUR and endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

In granting the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship the Foundation is honouring researchers of all disciplines from abroad who are internationally recognised as leaders in their field. It allows them to spend five years at German universities working on ground breaking research. The award gives universities the opportunity not only to offer top international researchers competitive general conditions and long-term prospects for working in Germany, but also to enhance their institutional profile.

The four award winners will now embark on the final round of negotiations with the universities in Germany which nominated them:

• Economist,  Gerard J. van den Berg (47), of Amsterdam Free University is due to conduct research at Mannheim University.
• Classicist, Philip van der Eijk (46), currently at Newcastle University in the UK, will move to Berlin’s Humboldt University.
• Mathematician, Marc Levine (56) from Northeastern University, Boston, USA, will relocate to Duisburg-Essen University.
• Quantum physicist, Mikhail Lukin (37) will move from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, to Technical University of Munich.

"Spending up to five million EUR on an academic award is not only a courageous signal effect in terms of science policy; it is, above all, a decisive investment in the future – not least in view of the worldwide financial crisis. We are investing in outstanding individual researchers and their ideas as well as in intelligent university strategies. The dividends will enhance Germany’s status as an international location for research,” commented Professor Helmut Schwarz, President of the Humboldt Foundation.

“I’m delighted that the new award winners come from such different disciplines. This shows that our research award really does have wide appeal,” said Federal Research Minister, Annette Schavan, at the selection on Friday. “The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship allows universities to be proactive in recruiting top level staff who then draw other excellent colleagues after them. This is an enormous gain for Germany as a research location and promises to be an important incentive in the fields of internationalisation and modernisation.“

The Humboldt Foundation’s Selection Committee examined 20 submissions. Two women and 18 men were nominated, of whom eight were German and 12 of foreign nationality. Ten of the candidates currently work in the USA, four in the UK and one in Canada, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and the Russian Federation respectively. 12 nominations were submitted on behalf of natural scientists, seven for humanities scholars and social scientists and one for an engineering scientist.

By contrast to the first round, the humanities and social sciences were able to score in the competition this time round. Just as last year, a total of ten awards may be granted in 2009. The other award winners will be selected in the summer and autumn selection rounds.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation annually enables more than 1800 researchers from all over the world to spend time researching in Germany. The Foundation maintains a network of some 23,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in 130 countries worldwide - including 41 Nobel Prize winners.