The latest recipients of the most prestigious research funding prize in Germany have been announced: the Joint Committee of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) today awarded the 2025 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize to four female and six male researchers. They were previously chosen from among 142 nominees by the selection committee responsible. Of the ten prizewinners, two work in the humanities and social sciences, four in the life sciences, three in the natural sciences and one in the engineering sciences. The winners each receive €2.5 million in prize money. They are entitled to use the prize money for their research work in any way they wish, without bureaucratic obstacles, for a period of up to seven years.
The Leibniz Prizes will be officially presented on 19 March 2025 in Berlin. The award ceremony will be preceded by an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the programme: here, all previous prize recipients will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue and network with one another.
The following researchers will receive the 2025 “Funding Prize in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme” awarded by the DFG:
- Professor Dr. Volker Haucke, Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP), Berlin
- Professor Dr. Hannes Leitgeb, Theoretical Philosophy, LMU Munich
- Professor Dr. Bettina Valeska Lotsch, Solid-State and Materials Chemistry, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart
- Professor Dr. Wolfram Pernice, Experimental Physics, University of Heidelberg
- Professor Dr. Ana Pombo, Genomics, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin
- Professor Dr. Daniel Rückert, Artificial Intelligence, TU Munich
- Professor Dr. Angkana Rüland, Applied Mathematics, University of Bonn
- Professor Dr. Michael Seewald, Catholic Theology, University of Münster
- Professor Dr. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, Epigenetics, Helmholtz Munich
- Professor Dr. Robert Zeiser, Haematology and Oncology, University Hospital Freiburg
The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize has been awarded annually by the DFG since 1986. Up to ten prizes can be awarded per year, each endowed with prize money of €2.5 million. Including this year’s awards, a total of 428 Leibniz Prizes have been awarded to date. Of these, 136 have gone to the natural sciences, 126 to the life sciences, 101 to the humanities and social sciences and 65 to the engineering sciences. As the prize and prize money can be shared in exceptional cases, there have been more award recipients than there have been prizes. A total of 455 nominees have received the prize to date, including 377 male researchers and 78 female researchers.
Two female and ten male Leibniz prizewinners have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize after being awarded the most important research funding prize in Germany: 1988 Professor Dr. Hartmut Michel (Chemistry), 1991 Professor Dr. Erwin Neher and Professor Dr. Bert Sakmann (both Medicine), 1995 Professor Dr. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Medicine), 2005 Professor Dr. Theodor W. Hänsch (Physics), 2007 Professor Dr. Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry), 2014 Professor Dr. Stefan W. Hell (Chemistry), 2020 Professor Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier (Chemistry) and Professor Dr. Reinhard Genzel (Physics), 2021 Professor Dr. Benjamin List (Chemistry), 2022 Professor Dr. Svante Pääbo (Medicine) and 2023 Professor Dr. Ferenc Krausz (Physics).
Brief portraits of the 2025 recipients of the Leibniz Prize:
Professor Dr. Volker Haucke of the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology, Berlin receives the Leibniz Prize for his work on the molecular understanding of lipid signalling and signal transmission at the synapses of the nervous system.
What are the mechanisms that enable nerve cells to function? In pursuing this question, Volker Haucke focuses particularly on a process known as endocytosis: when cells take up fluid and small substances from their environment, they specifically fold in areas of their membrane. This also regulates the composition of the cell membrane and the transport of receptors from the cell surface. In conjunction with processes involving the transport of substances out of the cell, endocytosis in nerve cells plays a crucial role in ensuring precise signal transmission at synapses and preventing the degeneration of the nerve cells. Haucke has gained new insights into the interaction between neuronal protein complexes, lipid signals and mechanisms that break down the cell’s own components. Based on his findings, he has already developed inhibitors of important enzymes in lipid metabolism, thereby raising hopes of new anti-cancer drugs.
Volker Haucke studied biochemistry at the FU Berlin and obtained his doctorate at the Biozentrum, University of Basel. After a postdoc stay at Yale University, USA, he went to the University of Göttingen as a junior research group leader. From there he returned to FU Berlin as a professor of biochemistry. Since 2012, he has headed the Leibniz Association’s Berlin Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology. He has already received numerous prizes and grants for his work, including an ERC Advanced Grant and the 2020 Feldberg Prize. Haucke’s memberships include the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Academia Europaea and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).
Professor Dr. Hannes Leitgeb of LMU Munich receives the Leibniz Prize for the work he has done in mathematical-analytical philosophy which has had a lasting impact on key debates in philosophy.
One of the central visions of the philosopher and mathematician Leibniz was to solve philosophical problems mathematically. For him, this meant that “two philosophers who fall into a dispute will argue no differently than two accountants. It is enough for them to take a pen in hand, sit down before a little tablet, and say to each other: ‘Calculemus!’ (Let us calculate!)”. The mathematician and philosopher Hannes Leitgeb is also working to achieve this objective. He has shed light on the tradition of mathematical-analytical philosophy by carrying out key historical studies, expanding it with the help of creative ideas, and applying it to numerous phenomena in philosophy and in the cognitive and linguistic sciences. Based on a groundbreaking theory, he has shown how rational convictions and their dependence on new data can be justified. He has also made significant contributions to our understanding of indefinite and vague terms and has defined the framework in which expressions can be understood that refer to the same thing but have different meanings.
Hannes Leitgeb studied mathematics and obtained his doctorate in both mathematics and philosophy at the University of Salzburg before going on to become an assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy there in 2001. From 2004 to 2005, he conducted research at Stanford University, USA, and then at the University of Bristol, UK, where he accepted a professorship in 2007. Since 2010, Hannes Leitgeb has been Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Language at LMU Munich. Previous distinctions he has received for his work include the 2007 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The Society for Analytic Philosophy has decided to award him the Frege Award at its next conference in 2025. He is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Academia Europaea. He was also editor of the journal Erkenntnis up until 2023.
Professor Dr. Bettina Valeska Lotsch of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, receives the Leibniz Prize for her work in solid-state chemistry, which bridges the gap between fundamentally oriented materials synthesis and the development of new materials.
Innovative materials that can be used for sustainable energy sources – this is the area being investigated by the chemist Bettina Valeska Lotsch. With a focus on fundamentally oriented materials synthesis, she has done groundbreaking work in developing a new generation of photocatalysts that make it possible to generate hydrogen and reduce CO2 after exposure to light. By studying the interaction of light with specially produced materials, she has also developed an entirely new light storage concept that allows the conversion and storage of solar energy in a single material. This enables delayed photocatalysis in the dark – for which Bettina Valeska Lotsch has coined the term “dark photocatalysis”. These findings are vital to the development of efficient solar batteries, for example. Lotsch’s work on the development of inorganic electrocatalysts based on two-dimensional materials for water splitting has also attracted a great deal of attention.
After obtaining her degree and doctorate at LMU Munich, Bettina Valeska Lotsch went to the University of Toronto, Canada, for two years as a postdoc in 2007, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Back in Germany, she was appointed tenure-track professor at LMU Munich, and from 2011 onwards, she was also an independent group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Since 2017, she has been the director of the Department of Nanochemistry there, while also an honorary professor at LMU Munich and the University of Stuttgart. Lotsch received an ERC Starting Grant in 2014. She has previously received numerous awards for her outstanding work, including the European Materials Research Society’s EU-40 Materials Prize in 2017. In 2021, she was inducted into the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Professor Dr. Wolfram Pernice of the University of Heidelberg receives the Leibniz Prize for his work in the field of neuromorphic photonic computing, which combines physical data processing with artificial intelligence.
A computer that works in a way similar to a brain: this is the idea that physicist Wolfram Pernice is focused on. More specifically, he is working on neuromorphic photonic computing, which involves neural networks that use light instead of electrons. Pernice has done pioneering work in this field. His studies combine optical methods of physical data processing with parallel calculations that are crucial to the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI). Pernice’s interdisciplinary research crosses traditional boundaries and has an impact on various disciplines – from natural sciences to computer science and engineering, as well as chemistry and the life sciences. His research findings point the way to innovative and sustainable methods for reducing the energy consumption of AI computer hardware while still enabling fast calculations. He is also known worldwide as a pioneer in the field of integrated quantum photonics, in particular superconducting single-photon detectors.
Wolfram Pernice studied microsystems engineering at the University of Freiburg and computer science at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Oxford, UK, in 2007. A year later, he moved to Yale University, USA, sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and in 2011, he became head of an Emmy Noether junior research group at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In 2015, he accepted a professorship at the University of Münster. Since 2021, Pernice has been a professor at the Kirchhoff Institute for Physics at the University of Heidelberg, while continuing as an adjunct professor at the University of Münster. In 2013, he was elected to the Junge Akademie at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He received an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2016, and in 2019, he was a successful participant in the Volkswagen Foundation’s programme Momentum.
Professor Dr. Ana Pombo of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin, receives the Leibniz Prize for her work on the 3D organisation of chromosomal DNA in the cell nucleus.
Cells are masters at accommodating information in the most confined of spaces: as the carriers of genetic material, chromosomes are compressed by almost three orders of magnitude to fit into the cell nucleus. Since the decoding of the genome around the turn of the millennium, the question has arisen as to how chromosomes and the individual gene segments are present in spatially defined structures and whether such structures have biological functions. Ana Pombo has developed new groundbreaking methods to map the three-dimensional organisation of chromosomal DNA in individual cells. In doing so, she has been the first to discover crucial contacts within chromosomes, but also between different chromosomes. Her findings have resulted in a new understanding of gene regulation and the underlying structures within the cell nucleus. These insights are also relevant to a better understanding of disease processes.
After studying biochemistry at the University of Lisbon, Ana Pombo obtained her doctorate in cell biology at the University of Oxford, UK, in 1998. She then joined the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences at Imperial College London, UK, where she worked as an independent group leader. Since 2013, Pombo has headed a research laboratory at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, where she is also Vice Director for Research and a member of the management body. She is also a professor at HU Berlin and contributes actively to her field as the editor of a scientific journal and a conference organiser. She is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and the European Academy of Sciences.
Professor Dr. Daniel Rückert of TU Munich receives the Leibniz Prize for his work in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning and their applications in medicine.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning methods are already widely used in medicine, including in imaging techniques – an area in which Daniel Rückert has done pioneering work. He has developed novel algorithms that can be used to reconstruct, analyse and interpret biomedical images, work which has significantly accelerated the image-taking process and given rise to novel methods for reconstructing CT and MRT image data. As a result, diseases can now be diagnosed and treated more effectively and more individually. Rückert presented his first studies on non-rigid and multimodal registration as early as the 1990s. This made it possible to link medical image data across different time points and modalities. He has also proposed powerful algorithms in the field of machine learning. In more recent studies, Rückert has also established 3D reconstruction using machine learning, which is used primarily for MRI data.
Daniel Rückert studied computer science at the Technical University of Berlin and obtained his doctorate at Imperial College London, after which he took up a postdoc position at King’s College London, UK. In 1999, he became an assistant professor at Imperial College, and six years later, he was appointed to a professorship in visual information processing at the Department of Computing, which he chaired from 2016 to 2020. Since 2020, he has been Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Healthcare’ at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of TU Munich. Rückert’s memberships include the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-
Professor Dr. Angkana Rüland of the University of Bonn receives the Leibniz Prize for her work in mathematical analysis, in particular on models for microstructures in phase transitions in solids and inverse problems with nonlocal operators.
Angkana Rüland’s research in mathematical analysis is inspired by problems that arise in the natural sciences and lead to fascinating mathematical questions. One focus area of her work is crystalline microstructures during phase transitions in solids. In one of her pioneering studies she looked at the change from a cubic to an orthorhombic crystal lattice during a temperature-induced phase transition and classified the geometries that occur, taking into account the interfacial energies. Her research has potential relevance to the development of new materials, such as those with magnetic properties. Her second area of focus is inverse problems. These arise when the cause of an observed effect is to be inferred, for example in medical imaging. Rüland is mainly concerned with a particular class of inverse problems – the Calderón problem and its nonlocal variants. She has addressed questions of uniqueness and reconstruction, applying her creative methods to harness a new line of research for inverse problems with nonlocal operators.
Angkana Rüland studied mathematics in Bonn and Leipzig, obtaining her doctorate at the University of Bonn in 2014. She then spent three years as a junior research fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, and from 2017 to 2020 as a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig. In 2020, she accepted a professorship in Heidelberg before returning to Bonn in 2023, where she now holds a professorship at the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics cluster of excellence. She received the Calderón Prize for Inverse Problems from the Inverse Problems International Association in 2023 and the Breakthrough Foundation’s New Horizons in Mathematics Prize in 2024. Rüland is actively involved in the promotion of early-career talent and in science communication.
Professor Dr. Michael Seewald of the University of Münster receives the Leibniz Prize for his work in systematic theology, particularly the history and hermeneutics of dogmas.
Michael Seewald has dedicated himself to concise, unconventional and creative studies in systematic theology, particularly in the history and hermeneutics of dogmas. With his historically and critically derived and systematically reasoned plea for the changeability of dogmas while maintaining tradition, he has succeeded in building a bridge between opposing camps in Catholicism. Recognised as a leading figure in dogmatic hermeneutics, he significantly impacts ongoing theological conversations about reform, faith dynamics, and tradition, while also fostering a greater appreciation of scholarly theologians who are involved in broader public discourse, not just in the academic domain. He also pursues comparative religious studies in collaboration with Islamic scholar Thomas Bauer and Jewish Studies scholar Alfred Bodenheimer. These studies are a consistent advancement of his thinking, aiming to compare the fluidity of competing claims to validity within a broader context.
After studying Catholic theology, philosophy and political science in Tübingen, Michael Seewald obtained his doctorate in 2011 at the LMU Munich, also going on to gain his post-doctoral lecturing qualification there in 2015. One year later, he accepted the invitation to take up a professorship in dogmatics and the history of dogma in Münster, where he continues to teach today. Here, he has been spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics. Dynamics of Tradition and Innovation” since 2022. He has received numerous distinctions for his academic achievements, including the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize in 2017. In addition, he was appointed a scientific member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts in 2023 and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin in 2024.
Professor Dr. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla of Helmholtz Munich receives the Leibniz Prize for her work on epigenetic plasticity and reprogramming of stem cells in mammalian embryonic development.
Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla’s research focuses on the mechanisms underlying cell plasticity, i.e. the adaptability of cells. Her main focus is epigenetic processes, i.e. cellular processes that influence the activity of genes due to environmental influences. In her research she applies findings and methods from epigenetics to questions of cellular plasticity in the embryo. One central aspect of her research is epigenetic reprogramming and the question of how the chromatin structure of DNA controls the adaptability of cells. Torres-Padilla’s use of the mouse model system has already enabled her to answer crucial questions about developmental biology and stem cell regulation. Among other things, she has elucidated the role of histones – a class of nuclear proteins – in cell differentiation during early embryonic development. Another milestone was the discovery of the epigenetic factors that control the first step of reprogramming – from the very early “totipotent” stem cells to the embryonically differentiated cells.
Professor Dr. Robert Zeiser of the University Medical Center at the University of Freiburg receives the Leibniz Prize for his work on the research and treatment of leukaemia, particularly on transplant rejection and the immunological “camouflage” of tumours.
Robert Zeiser is well-known in the scientific community for his groundbreaking work on the treatment of leukaemia. The aim of his research is to gain fresh insights into the molecular immune processes involved in tumour diseases and the transplant rejection reactions they involve, with the aim of making advances through clinical trials so as to achieve the approval of new medications. Zeiser recognised early on that a certain molecular signalling pathway in the human immune system has a key role to play in rejection reactions during blood stem cell transplants. He successfully implemented this newly acquired immunological knowledge in a new therapy using the active substance ruxolitinib. In other studies, he has examined the mechanisms of immunological “camouflage” that tumours use to escape human immune defence. In leukaemia cells, for example, he was able to show that these cells have special receptor recognition molecules – the TIM3 ligands. Based on these findings, he developed anti-TIM3 antibodies that are used in cancer therapy.
Robert Zeiser studied medicine at the University of Freiburg, where he also obtained his doctorate. He then spent two years as a postdoc at the School of Medicine at Stanford University, USA, before returning to Freiburg to do his clinical training. He received a Heisenberg professorship there in 2013. In 2023, he became director of the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and deputy medical director. Zeiser has received several ERC Grants and numerous academic distinctions, including the Paul Martini Prize awarded by the Paul Martini Foundation and the German Cancer Prize awarded by the German Cancer Society and the German Cancer Foundation. He is also a leading figure in the American Society of Hematology.
Further Information
Event notice:
The Leibniz Prizes will be presented on 19 March 2025 at Café Moskau in Berlin. The event will also be live streamed: https://www.dfg.de/dfg-bewegt/
The media will receive a separate invitation.
Media contact:
DFG Press and Public Relations, Tel. +49 228 885-2109, presse@dfg.de
Contact at DFG Head Office:
Dr. Christina Elger, DFG Scientific Prizes, Tel. +49 228 885-3117, christina.elger@dfg.de
For further information on the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme and, from the beginning of the new year, on the 2025 prizewinners, see: https://www.dfg.de/en/funded-projects/prizewinners/leibniz-prize