The Oldenburg University Society honoured outstanding academic achievements with a total of eight prizes. The Open Science Prize was awarded for the first time.
As part of the opening event for the university's anniversary, the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg e. V. (UGO) honoured seven researchers and one initiative at the university. The "Prize for Excellent Research" in the Humanities, Social and Cultural Sciences category was shared by musicologist Prof. Dr Mario Dunkel and Germanist Prof. Dr Thomas Boyken, while medical informatics specialist Prof. Dr Antje Wulff was honoured in the Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Medicine category. Biologist Dr Jingjing Xu and chemist Dr Lars Mohrhusen received the "Outstanding Doctorate Award". Biologist Prof Dr Miriam Liedvogel and healthcare researcher Prof Dr Falk Hoffmann were awarded the prize for outstanding doctoral supervisor. The UGO also awarded the "Open Science Prize" for the first time. It went to the Open Science Interest Group (OSIG) at the Department of Psychology.
Prize for excellent research
Mario Dunkel, Professor of Music Education, received the "Prize for Excellent Research" for his broad-based research achievements in various areas of music education, including aspects of diversity and intersectionality, as well as for his extensive international networking.
Thomas Boyken, Professor of Children's and Young Adult Literature, received the award for his innovative approach to the academic study of children's and young adult literature and for his transfer to the region, particularly in the context of the Kibum children's book fair.
Antje Wulff, Junior Professor of Big Data in Medicine at the Department of Health Services Research since 2022, received the award for her pioneering approaches in the field of integrating and analysing medical data and for developing clinical decision support systems.
Award for outstanding doctorate
Jingjing Xu was honoured for her doctoral thesis, which shows that migratory birds use quantum mechanical mechanisms to precisely find their destination over thousands of kilometres. Xu completed her doctorate at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and at the Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences in the working group of Prof Dr Henrik Mouritsen.
Lars Mohrhusen was honoured for his doctoral thesis, which dealt with defects in catalysts based on titanium dioxide. He completed his doctorate under Prof Dr Katharina Al-Shamery in the Nanophotonics and Interfacial Chemistry working group.
Award for outstanding doctoral supervisor
Miriam Liedvogel and Falk Hoffmann received the Outstanding Doctoral Supervisor Award for their above-average commitment to supervising young scientists. Liedvogel was appointed to the Professorship of Ornithology in 2020 and Hoffmann to the Professorship of Health Services Research in 2015.
Making research transparent
The aim of the new "Open Science Prize" is to promote initiatives at the university that endeavour to make research and research results transparent and freely accessible, thus ensuring the quality of scientific work. The so-called Open Science principles include, for example, making research data and information on research methods available on online platforms in such a way that they are easy to find and access and can be reused at a later date.
The excellent Open Science Interest Group (OSIG) is an initiative of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers at the Department of Psychology. The members work on a voluntary basis and have set themselves the goal of disseminating knowledge about Open Science, facilitating exchange within the Department and supporting interested parties in implementing the Open Science principles in their work.
