The Jülich Excellence Prize: starting point for successful careers
Since 2009, Forschungszentrum Jülich awards the annual Jülich Excellence Prize to outstanding young scientists for exceptional scientific achievements during their doctorate and early postdoc phase. The bar is high for the two-stage procedure and the assessment by an independent selection panel, and the scientific excellence of the nominees is the most important criterion for selection. A look at the more than 40 honourees shows that many have continued their careers extremely successfully, even though the career paths they have taken can look very different.
Take Prof. Dr. Thomas Kirchartz and Prof. Dr. Dörte Rother, for example, who were awarded the Excellence Prize in 2009 and 2010. Both have acquired large third-party funded projects and continued their careers at FZJ. They currently head institutes at FZJ and simultaneously hold professorships at RWTH Aachen University. Dr. Felix Lüpke and Dr. Peter Schüffelgen, recipients of the 2019 Excellence Award, also secured funding from DFG and BMFTR to lead a young investigator research group at FZJ.
Others were drawn to an international scientific institution as their next career step: such as Dr. Yulia Skåtun, winner of the 2020 prize, who shortly afterwards was appointed as Associate Professor at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. Dr. Alexander van Meegen, awarded in 2023, accepted a prestigious Swartz Fellowship for a postdoctoral stay at the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University after completing his doctorate. octoral stay at the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University after completing his doctorate. Dr. Moritz Lukas Weber, who was also a prize recipient in 2023, is now an Assistant Professor at Kyushu University in Japan. Laura Helleckes, who received the Jülich Excellence Award in 2026, has moved to Imperial College London, UK, with an Imperial Research Fellowship.
Other honourees took the next step in their careers in industry. For example, Dr. Florian Speck, recipient of the Excellence Award in 2021, worked for Schaeffler Technologies AG, a supplier to the automotive and mechanical engineering industries, and is now Global Engineering Manager Hydrogen at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies. Dr. Tarini Mishra received the Excellence Award in 2022 and currently serves as Vice President of Sales, Marketing & Business Development at HaikuTech in the Netherlands.
Dr. John Kettler, winner of the Excellence Prize in 2011, founded an innovative spin-off in the field of nuclear technology together with partners immediately after completing his doctorate, and a second company in consulting one decade later.
In short, the Excellence Prize winners are now active in a wide variety of fields and actively contribute to science transfer.
Contact
Dr. Katharina Klein
Referentin für wissenschaftliche Nachwuchsförderung - PostDocs / Support for Early-Career Scientists
Room 2062