The Photochemistry Division of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) will award a prize for an outstanding master's thesis in the field of photochemistry/spectroscopy for the first time in 2025 to promote young scientists.

The award comes with an award certificate and prize money of 500 euros and will be presented at an online symposium to be held in mid-November 2025 for the final identification of the award winner. After an initial review of the application documents by the selection committee, up to four young researchers will be invited to this symposium to present their Master's thesis to a wider audience. After the online presentations, a selection committee appointed for this purpose, representing the Photochemistry Division, will decide who will receive the award. The prize can be shared.

The prize has not yet been announced.

In autumn 2025, the Photochemistry Division of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) will award a prize for an outstanding master's thesis in the field of photochemistry/spectroscopy. After an initial review of the application documents, up to four young researchers will be invited to an online symposium, which will take place in mid-November 2025, to present their Master's thesis to a wider audience. A selection committee appointed by the Executive Board will decide whether to award the prize of 500 euros. The prize can be shared.

The following documents must be submitted directly by the applicant:

• Final version of the Master's thesis, showing the submission date
• CV
• Short summary of the thesis
• A short letter of recommendation from the academic supervisor

The Master's thesis must not have been submitted more than one year ago.

Submission

Please send your application electronically and summarised in a PDF file with the subject "Application for the Photochemistry Master's Prize" by 16 October 2025 to the GDCh office for the attention of Maike Fries.

The Master Awards 2025 were presented to Annika Pax and Maximilian Schick on 5 November 2025 on the occasion of the online symposium "Master Award 2025".

Annika Prax
In recognition of her outstanding Master's thesis entitled "Time-Resolved Vibrational Absorption Spectroscopy of Electronically Excited Pyrimidine Nucleobase Derivatives", which she wrote in the working group of Prof Dr Maria Wächtler at Kiel University.

Maximilian Schick
In recognition of his outstanding Master's thesis, completed in the working group of Prof Dr Jens Bredenbeck at Goethe University Frankfurt, entitled: "The Lipid and The Light: Probing Ultrafast Dynamics in Photoswitchable Membranes using VIS-Pump IR-Probe Spectroscopy".