About us

At the beginning of 2007, the UniCat board decided not to wait for the DFG to make its decision concerning the funding of the cluster from November 2007 on. Since it is of upmost importance for the quality of the research in the field of catalysis to continuously attract the best students in the world to Berlin, the board decided to found a "light version" of the graduate school as soon as possible, in order to offer a high quality structured educational program to the students already here.

Thus, on May 29 2007, the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), the host university of the UniCat consortium, decided to found the BIG-NSE at a founding ceremony with about 300 participants. The president of the TUB, Prof. Dr. Kurt Kutzler, presented a BIG-NSE founding certificate to each of the representatives of the institutions of the UniCat consortium. The Berlin Senator for Education, Sciences and Research, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zöllner, co-founded the school with Prof. Kutzler and gave a speech on the urgent need to actively encourage young people to become highly qualified researchers in Germany.  The ceremony was even attended by representatives from industry and industrial foundations, two of whom also gave a speech. The tentative translation into English of the (German) press text, the program and pictures of the founding ceremony can be found here.

On October 19 2007, UniCat was chosen as one of the few successful proposals within the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Governments. The cluster received € 6.5 million yearly for five years to implement its program. Part of this money was transferred to the BIG-NSE, allowing it to recruit and fund (for three years) the PhD projects of up to ten new excellent students per year. More about this here. 

In June 2012, UniCat was granted a five-year extension in Excellence Initiative funding, and then again for another 14 months, unttil December 2018.

Finally, in October 2018, UniCat succeeded in its transformation into a new cluster, called UniSysCat, which will be financed for a further seven years by the DFG Excellence Initiative, beginning in January 2019.

In January 2019, the BIG-NSE became part of the Berlin-financed "Einstein Center of Catalysis" and is now receiving substantial funding from the Berlin Einstein Foundation for the seven years to come.

Within this new framework, the BIG-NSE (now EC²/BIG-NSE) is not just continuing its original mission. In addition, special emphasis is now placed on the promotion of interdisciplinary research between institutions and networks in the Berlin region. In particular, a new recruitment procedure has been designed to encourage future PhD students to work on topics at the interface between different research fields.

In the past, applicants could freely choose a PhD topic offered by one of the UniCat project leaders. Although the students were particularly encouraged to select a subject at the interface between two research areas and choose a second supervisor from another research field, occasionally PhD students would complete their degree by defending a thesis that in fact barely involved a second group.

As part of the new EC² concept, applicants are now asked to apply for PhD scholarships/positions bound to a project proposal already defined by the Executive Board of EC²/BIG-NSE. Prior to their announcement, the project proposal are submitted internally by project leaders involved in UniSysCat. Only projects both at least one partner of UniSysCatand a member of one of the following Berlin networks* are accepted.

 *The inclusion of further networks and initiatives not yet listed in the table requires the approval of the Executive Board of EC².

Potential applicants are only allowed to apply for one of the project proposals selected by the Executive Board of EC²/BIG-NSE. Only proposals with a high level of interdisciplinary research are accepted. The latest list of selected project proposals can be found here.

This is one of the new measures applied by EC²/BIG-NSE with the intention of increasing the level of interdisciplinary research performed by its PhD students. Further measures, like the organization of regular interdisciplinary events, will be implemented as well.