The North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts (AWK NRW) today announced that Junior Professor Hans-Georg Steinrück, a chemist at Paderborn University, is one of 17 researchers to have been admitted to its Young Academy (Das Junge Kolleg). Admission to the Young Academy brings with it an annual scholarship of €10,000. Holders of the scholarship also have the opportunity to network with other researchers from a broad range of disciplines and to participate in all AWK NRW events, which bring together some of the best minds in their fields. Steinrück is delighted: “It’s a tremendous honour to have been admitted to the Young Academy of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. I look forward to all the exciting opportunities, challenges and collaborations that it will bring.”
The scholarship programme is open to all PhD students, from any discipline, and talented artists under the age of 36. A further prerequisite for membership is that they must be able to demonstrate an outstanding track record of academic or artistic achievement beyond their PhD. Steinrück has been a junior professor in Paderborn University’s Department of Chemistry since April 2020. His working group conducts research into fundamental issues of sustainable energy storage and desalination, with the aim of, for example, helping to combat global water shortages. The researcher says: “Our research focuses on electrochemical methods in general and ion batteries and electrochemical desalination in particular. Of interest are phenomena such as interfaces, transport, energy efficiency and sustainability, as well as synchrotron X-ray techniques for studying them. Our philosophy is that the basic knowledge gained can be leveraged for knowledge-based improvements in sustainable materials, as basic knowledge can inspire new concepts.”
