DSM Awards

To promote excellence in innovation, DSM awards a number of prizes every year for exceptional achievements of external specialists working in a variety of fields.

At present we have the following awards categories in place:

These prestigious awards seek to recognize and reward outstanding young researchers (PhD students and those who have recently obtained their PhD) who are conducting innovative research with clear potential for practical applications.

The Awards are open to researchers in two international European regions:

• North: comprising the Netherlands, Belgium and Norhern Germany; and
• South: comprising Switzerland, Austria, Northeastern France and Southern Germany.

On 9 June 2009, Belgian researcher Peter Dedecker who received his doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) won the first prize in the DSM Science & Technology Awards (North) 2009.The international judging committee, chaired by DSM Chief Technology Officer Dr Jos Put, selected Dr Peter Dedecker for his PhD research in the field of super resolution fluorescence microscopy.

On 23 June 2009, Swiss researcher Alexandra Teleki who obtained her doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich (Switzerland) won the first prize in the DSM Science & Technology Awards (South) 2009. An international judging committee, chaired by Dr Manfred Eggersdorfer, R&D Director at DSM Nutritional Products, selected Alexandra Teleki, for her PhD research on the production and application of coated nanoparticles.

The aim of the DSM Nutrition Award is to reward outstanding contributions to innovative research in the field of human and animal nutrition by established scientists anywhere in the world. The award is presented every two years and alternates between the fields of human and animal nutrition. In 2007 the award was granted for research on animal nutrition, in 2009 it has been presented for research on human nutrition, and so on.

The DSM Nutrition Award 2009 for research on Human Nutrition has been granted jointly to Professor Michael F. Holick of Boston University, USA, and Professor Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in recognition of their seminal contributions to research on vitamin D and its role in human nutrition and health. The award was presented at the International Congress of Nutrition 2009 in Bangkok (Thailand) on 6 October.

The aim of the DSM Performance Materials Award, a new award which was granted for the first time in 2008, is to recognize and reward outstanding contributions to the advancement of the materials sciences. It is presented once every two years, in cooperation with IUPAC, the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry.

The DSM Performance Materials Award 2008 has been awarded to Craig J. Hawker, Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Materials and Director of the Materials Research Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He was given the award in recognition of his exceptional contributions to the advancement of the materials sciences. Professor Hawker is one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of polymeric performance materials. His outstanding fundamental and applied research and his dedication to innovative science have earned him a high reputation and a large following in the academic world. The award was presented to Professor Hawker by Professor Joseph Put, Chief Technology Officer of DSM, at the IUPAC Macro 2008 Congress in Taipei (Taiwan) on June 30.