Reto Battaglia will receive the award in recognition of his significant contribution to European cooperation in chemistry during the 1st European Chemistry Congress, in August 2006, in Budapest. Reto Battaglia has made an exceptional contribution to the transformation of FECS (the former Federation of European Chemical Societies) into EuCheMS, a transformation which has great significance for the representation of the 50 chemical societies in Europe and their 150,000 members, and is of fundamental importance for future European cooperation for the benefit of chemical sciences. A Past President of EuCheMS (1999-2002) and a member of the EuCheMS Executive Committee, Reto Battaglia has also held office as Chair of the EuCheMS Food Chemistry Division, having served as a member since 1981. Reto Battaglia is the Director of Swiss Quality Testing Services, the quality control laboratories owned by Migros in Switzerland. He is a member of the Board of the Swiss Chemical Society and lectures at ETH Zürich where he is responsible for the course 'Quality Assurance in Food Processing and Trade' for students of Food Science. The 1st European Chemistry Congress, in Budapest on 27-31 August 2006, aims to be a showcase for chemical sciences in Europe and will bring together chemical and molecular scientists from industry, academia and government institutions across Europe and from around the world. Further information is available at www.euchems-budapest2006.hu EuCheMS - the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences is a non-profit making association. Its object is to promote cooperation in Europe between those non-profit-making scientific and technical societies and professional institutions in the field of chemical sciences whose membership consists largely of individual qualified chemists/chemical scientists and whose interests include the science and/or practice of chemistry/chemical sciences. It was founded in 1970 and currently has 50 member societies in 36 countries.