SCNAT Newsletter 04/2026

Announcement of the Heilbronner-Hückel Lecture Tour 2026: Prof. Dr. Beatriz Roldan Cuenya

The 2026 Heilbronner-Hückel lecture tour in Switzerland will take place from October 5-8, 2026. We are proud to announce Prof. Dr. Beatriz Roldan Cuenya, Director of the Department of Interface Science, Fritz-Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, as this year's lecturer.

Picture: Prof. Dr. Beatriz Roldán Cuenya
© ullstein bild - Martin Lengemann/WELT
https://www.fhi.mpg.de/1700753/roldan-cuenya 

The tour is planned as follows:

• Mon, October 5, 2026, 17.00h, EPFL, co-organized with University of Geneva
  Lecture hall tbd: EPFL Lausanne, 
  «The Secret Life of CO₂ Electroreduction Catalysts unveiled by Operando Spectroscopy and Microscopy»
• Tue, October 6, 2026, 16.00h, ETH Zurich, co-organizerd with University of Zurich
  Lecture hall HCI G7, ETH Zurich, D-CHAB, Vladimir Prelog Weg, 8093 Zurich
  «Catalysts: More Alive than Previously Thought»
• Wed, October 7, 2026, 16.30h, University of Basel
  Lecture Hall U1.402, University of Basel, Universitäres Zentrum für Zahnmedizin Basel (UZB), Mattenstrasse 40, 4058 Basel
  «The Power of Imperfections: A New Paradigm in Catalysis»
• Thu, October 8, 2026, 14.15h, University of Bern, co-organized with University of Fribourg
  Lecture hall EG16, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern
  «Catalysts: More Alive than Previously Thought»

SCS program manager: Prof. Martin Quack, ETH Zurich

About the Heilbronner-Hückel Lecture Series

The Lecture Series was implemented in 2009 with the first series in 2010 together with the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh). The annual series take place alternatively in Switzerland and Germany. It is named after the chemists Edgar Heilbronner, born in Munich in 1921 and passed away in Herrliberg in 2006, and Erich Hückel, born in Berlin 1896 and died in Marburg in 1980.

Edgar Heilbronner emigrated together with his wife to Switzerland because of the Nazi regimes and studied chemistry in Zurich at the ETH where he also habilitated later on. In 1968 he changed to University of Basel.
Erich Hückel studied physics and mathematics at the University of Göttingen and habilitated at ETH Zurich as well. 

Website of the Heilbronner-Hückel Lecture Series

David Spichiger, SCS
18.05.2026

SCS Scientific Award Program 2027: Call for Nominations

The call for nominations for the SCS Awards 2027 is open until September 30, 2026.
Please visit our Website for further details and hand in nominations electronically to

Werner Prize
CHF 10'000 and medal in bronze. Awarded to a promising young scientist for outstanding independent chemical research.

Sandmeyer Award
CHF 10'000 for individuals or CHF 20'000 for groups. Awarded to a person or to a group for outstanding work in industrial or applied chemistry.

SCS Industrial Science Awards
This program includes awards on three career levels with cash checks of CHF 7'000, 10'000 and 15’000. It honors active industrial scientists working in Switzerland for their outstanding contributions in industrial R&D.

Green & Sustainable Chemistry Award
CHF 10’000. Honors outstanding scientific discoveries that lay the foundation for environmentally friendly approaches and products. It is supported by Syngenta as founding partner and SusChem Switzerland as hosting institution.  

Grammaticakis-Neumann Award
CHF 5’000. The Prize is awarded to a promising young scientist for outstanding accomplishments in the field of experimental or theoreticalphotochemistry. 

Balmer Prize
CHF 2'000 for individuals and CHF 2'000 for the school’s chemistry department or CHF 3'000 for a group and CHF 1'000 for the school’s chemistry department. Awarded to a teacher working in Switzerland at high school (gymnasium) level for innovation in chemistry teaching.

Dr. Max Lüthi Award
CHF 1'000 and medal in bronze. Presented for an outstanding diploma thesis in Chemistry conducted at a Swiss University of Applied Sciences.

Simon-Widmer Award
CHF 5’000. Honors distinguished scientists for their contribution to analytical science and the education of analytical scientists.

METAS Award
CHF 5’000. Honors outstanding contribution to the field of metrology in chemistry and/or biology.

Cancer Drug Discovery Research Award
CHF 10'000 in total for 2-4 winners. The award (supported by RGCC International) honors outstanding scientific achievements of MSc, PhD students or Postdocs from Switzerland that are working in the field of cancer drug discovery research.

DIAC Fellowship
CHF 1'000 and lecture tour in Switzerland. The distinction is granted to distinguished scientists from Industry for significant contributions and innovations over many years in the field of industrial chemistry and chemical process technology in Switzerland.

scg.ch/awards

Céline Wittwer, SCS
12.05.2026

SCNAT Annual Report 2025

The  SCNAT annual report 2025 provides an overview of the key developments, projects, and initiatives that shaped SCNAT’s work over the past year. A particular focus is placed on energy issues.

The international landscape is characterized by intense, unpredictable, and persistent geopolitical tensions, as well as growing challenges in the areas of security, the economy, and the environment. In this changing world, scientific expertise and dialogue based on reliable findings play a more important role than ever in informing public authorities and society.

SCNAT has published several key analyses and syntheses, including reports on nuclear energy and energy storage, as well as a summary of the work of the SWEET program, a consortium dedicated to the transformation of energy systems. Through these publications and accompanying dialogues, SCNAT contributes to the debate on Switzerland’s energy future.

Download the full report as pdf file

(translated with deepl.com from the SCNAT Website, Annual Report 2025)

David Spichiger, SCS
08.05.2026