It is the aim of the Excellence Scholarship Program BEBUC to help rebuild the academic staff in the Congo, thus giving the universities a new impetus. Just recently, new evaluations have taken place in the capital of Kinshasa. As a result, 178 scholars are now being supported at 25 Congolese schools and universities.

For the period 2016-2019 Professor Krüger was elected Chairman of Board of this large division within the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh).

Professor Frank Würthner has been elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. The Leopoldina is thus honouring Würthner’s scientific achievements in the field of supramolecular synthesis and its use for organic electronics, photonics and photovoltaics.

In the 1960s Siegfried Hünig, at that time director of the Chemical Institute, set the course for the great success that chemistry at the University of Würzburg would have later on. Numerous companions and guests of honour now celebrated his 95th birthday together with him.

A clean, climate-friendly energy source that is virtually inexhaustible: This is the promise artificial photosynthesis holds. Chemists from the University of Würzburg have now got one step closer to reaching this goal. The scientists present their work in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Frank Würthner has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), an honour that is given to a very small number of non-British RSC members.

This year's Siegfried Hünig Lecture is taking place on May 12th. Professor Gerhard Erker, awardee of the Federal Cross of Merit, is going to speak about his highly innovative research topic "Frustrated Lewis Pairs", thus complying with the desire of the 95 years old guest of honour, Siegfried Hünig.

In autumn 2015 the Research Training School on molecular biradicals took up its work at the University of Würzburg. Currently the cooperation between chemists and physicists led to a first result: a publication on a new molecule, which is of interest for organic electronics.

Again new candidates and prolongers have been examined within the Excellence Scholarship Program BEBUC in the East, North, South, and Center of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 16 out of 24 partner institutions of the University of Würzburg. Presently BEBUC supports 179 outstanding young Congolese.

Frank Würthner has been invited to give this name lecture, which was established at the University of Cologne in 2014. He succeeds Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Lehn.

At the "Kármán Conference" with the topic "From Molecular Materials to Complex Adaptive Molecular Systems" in Vaals (Netherlands), Stefanie Herbst, doctoral candidate at the Würthner group, was awarded with one of two prizes for an outstanding poster presentation.

The publishing house De Gruyter asked Jürgen Seibel, profesor of organic chemistry at the University of Würzburg, to succeed Nikolaus Amrhein (ETH Zürich) as Editor-in-Chief of the well-established journal "Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C - Journal of Biosciences".

More than 100 natural products scientists came together on October 9, 2015 for a one-day symposium entitled "Natural Products: Chemistry, Biology, and Ecology" – this time already for the 50th meeting. Host of the meeting was (like for the first conference) Prof. Gerhard Bringmann, Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Würzburg.

During a symposium in honor of Emil Fischer on October 7 the American Chemical Society’s Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award was handed over to a very proud President, Prof. Alfred Forchel. This award recognizes the breakthrough publication of Emil Fischer on the structure of sugars in 1891 and designates the University of Würzburg a historic site of chemistry.