Keynote Lectures

Kurt Alder, Otto Bayer & Emanuel Vogel Lecture

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Cologne honors outstanding scientists with three named lecture series: the Kurt Alder Lecture the Otto Bayer Lecture and the Emanuel Vogel Lecture.

The tradition goes back to Kurt Alder, Nobel Prize winner for chemistry in 1950, who taught and researched at the University of Cologne. His successor in the Chair of Organic Chemistry, Emanuel Vogel, continued this culture of invitational lectures. The Otto Bayer Lecture honors the Cologne chemist Otto Bayer, who, as the inventor of polyurethane, had a lasting impact on industrial chemistry in the 20th century.

An invitation is considered a distinction: those invited are among the most important representatives of their field - including several Nobel Prize winners. Anyone who gives one of these lectures joins the ranks of the most influential names in modern chemistry.

since 1990

Kurt Alder Lectures

2024	July 09, 2024 Prof. Dr. Tanja Weil Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz
2018	May 07, 2018 Prof. Varinder K. Aggarwal School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK "Assembly Line Synthesis"
2017	July 02, 2017 Prof. Antonio Echavarren ICIQ Tarragona "Total Synthesis with a Golden Touch"
2016	June 06, 2016 Prof. Peter Chen ETH Zurich "Catalytic Electrophilic Cyclopropanation without Diazo Compounds"
2015	June 08, 2015 Prof. Peter R. Schreiner Justus Liebig University, Giessen "Tunneling Control of Chemical Reactions"
2014	June 23, 2014 Prof. David Milstein Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel "Discovery of Metal-Catalyzed Reactions for Sustainable Chemistry"
2012	May 21, 2012 Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge "Palladium-Catalyzed Carbon-Nitrogen and Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation: Progress, Applications and Mechanistic Studies"
2011	June 20, 2011 Prof. Eric N. Jacobsen Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA "Attractive Non-Covalent Interactions in Asymmetric Catalysis"
2010	July 12, 2010 Prof. Kendall N. Houk University of California, Los Angeles "Mechanisms and Dynamics of Diels-Alder and Related Cycloadditions"
2009	June 15, 2009 Prof. Dr. Steven Ley Department of Chemistry, The University of Cambridge "The Azadirachtin Story"
2008	June 09, 2008 Prof. Masakatsu Shibasaki Tokyo University, Japan "Recent Progress in Asymmetric Two-Center Catalysis: Dynamic Structural Change of Chiral Rare Earth Complexes"
2006	June 16, 2006 Prof. Robert H. Grubbs Nobel Laureate 2005 California Institute of Technology, California, USA
2005	June 26, 2005 Prof. Dale Boger Scripps Research Institute, Dept. of Chemistry, La Jolla, California, USA
2004	June 28, 2004 Prof. Sason Shaik Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
2002	May 27, 2002 Prof. K. C. Nicolaou Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA
2001	May 28, 2001 Prof. A. Eschenmoser ETH Zurich, Switzerland and Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA
2000	Apr. 26, 2000 Prof. Ryoji Noyori Nobel Laureate 2001 Nagoya University, Japan
1998	May 04, 1998 Prof. Ronald Breslow Columbia University, New York, USA
1996	June 17, 1996 Prof. François Diederich ETH Zurich, Switzerland
1995	June 19, 1995 Prof. Richard E. Smalley Nobel Laureate 1996 Rice University, Houston, Texas
1994	June 20, 1994 Prof. Günther Wilke Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim/Ruhr
1992	Nov. 02, 1992 Prof. Elias Corey Nobel Prize winner 1990 Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
1991	Nov. 18, 1991 Prof. Alan R. Battersby University of Cambridge, UK
1990	Nov. 26, 1990 Prof. William von Eggers Doering Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

since 1991

Otto Bayer Lectures

2019	June 24, 2019 Dr. Joaquim Henrique Teles BASF SE, Ludwigshafen "Developing Oxidations on a Petrochemical Scale - The HPPO Process"
2013	May 27, 2013 Prof. Paul Knochel LMU Munich "Polyfunctional Li, Mg and Zn Organometallics for Synthesis"
2007	June 15, 2007 Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz
2003	June 02, 2003 Prof. Hisashi Yamamoto University of Chicago, USA and Nagoya University, Japan
2002	May 27, 2002 Prof. Helmut Schwarz Technical University of Berlin
1999	May 17, 1999 Prof. Dieter Seebach ETH Zurich, Switzerland
1997	Feb. 03, 1997 Prof. Manfred T. Reetz Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim/Ruhr
1995	Apr. 19, 1995 Prof. George A. Olah Nobel Laureate 1994 University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
1993	May 17, 1993 Prof. Heinz A. Staab Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg
1992	June 22, 1992 Prof. Satoru Masamune MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
1991	June 10, 1991 Prof. Teruaki Mukaiyama Science University of Tokyo, Japan

Emanuel Vogel Lectures

2025	Dec. 02, 2025 Prof. Harry Anderson University of Oxford "Synthesis of Molecular Wires, Nanorings and Nanobelts"
2024	Dec. 17, 2024 Prof. Dr. Rainer Herges Institute of Organic Chemistry, Kiel University "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Chemistry: Are computers able to discover new chemical reactions?"
2023	Dec. 05, 2023 Prof. Carsten Bolm RWTH Aachen University "Mechanochemistry: The use of mills in synthetic organic chemistry"
2022	Nov. 07, 2022 Prof. Dr. Luisa de Cola University of Milano, Italy "Self-Assembly of luminescent metal complexes in solution and in vivo"
2019	Dec. 16, 2019 Henning Hopf Technical University of Braunschweig "Research - a trip into the blue"
2018	Dec. 03, 2018 Andreas Hirsch University of Erlangen-Nuremberg "Chemistry of Synthetic Carbon Allotropes"
2017	Nov. 28, 2017 Prof. Dongho Kim Yonsei University, Seoul "Hückel, Möbius, Baird and 3-Dimensional Aromaticity in Various Expanded Porphyrins"
2016	Dec. 05, 2016 Prof. Jonathan L. Sessler University of Texas at Austin "Expanded Porphyrins: A Personal Journey"
2015	Dec. 07, 2015 Prof. Frank Würthner University of Würzburg "Functional Nanosystems Based on Dye Aggregates"
2014	Dec. 01, 2014 Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn Nobel Prize winner 1987 ISIS-Université de Strasbourg "Perspectives in Chemistry: From Supramolecular Chemistry towards Adaptive Chemistry"