New Program Strengthens RWTH Network with University of California

Collaboration will be expanded in the fields of catalysis and nuclear magnetic resonance.

 

Since 2013 RWTH Aachen has been working in the field of catalysis and nuclear magnetic resonance in the Aachen-California Network, ACalNet, with the three University of California schools in Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles. Forschungszentrum Jülich, the CAT-Catalytic Center in Aachen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Schlumberger-Doll Research Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts are also involved.

The collaboration has recently been extended for two additional years until the end of 2018 and is experiencing an upswing thanks to a three-year grant by the American National Science Foundation through the IRES program. IRES stands for International Research Experiences for Students; the program will allow doctoral candidates from California to come to RWTH every year to work on a research project for two months. "The IRES grant is one step further towards the permanent continuation of the network between RWTH and the partners in California built through ACalNet and contributes to increasing the international visibility of RWTH," explains ACalNet project supervisor Professor Bernhard Blümich from the RWTH Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry.

The network is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD. 22 RWTH scientists and an additional 22 from the partners in California are currently participating in the network, which is coordinated by the Center for Molecular Transformations, CMT, at RWTH.

Source: Press and Communications