Biography

Roland A. Fischer holds the Chair of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and is the Director of the TUM Catalysis Research Center (CRC). Previously he was Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Ruhr-University Bochum (1997–2015) and the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (1996–1997). He served as Vice-President of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2016 to 2022. He is member of the Award Selection Committee of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Association of the German Chemical Industry Fund (FCI) and elected member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC). His research interest focuses on functional molecular materials for advanced applications in energy conversion, catalysis, gas storage and separation, chemical sensing, photonics and microelectronics. the combinatorial building-block principle of coordination network compounds such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) yields ample opportunities for the manipulation and design of the chemistry of the coordination space in pores and channels accessible to guest molecules. His research goal is to integrate chemical and physical multi-functionality in photoactive, electrically conductive, catalytic and stimuli-responsive MOFs. He is also known for organometallic chemistry of metal-metal bonded systems. As an illustration, metal-rich complexes, atomic precise clusters, nanoparticles and nanocomposites can substitute rare noble metals in important catalytic transformations of small molecules. Recently, he introduced a living library concept to capture the dynamics and reactivity of mixed-metal clusters for catalysis.