Regensburg Professor Höfer receives the coveted DFG Research Prize 2025!

Regensburg Professor Höfer receives the coveted DFG Research Prize 2025!

Prof. Dr. Richard Höfer from the University of Regensburg was awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2025 from the German Research Foundation (DFG). This prestigious honor is considered the most important award for early career scientists in Germany. The prize includes prize money of 200,000 euros as well as a 22 percent program allowance for indirect project expenses.

A total of 180 researchers from various areas were nominated for the prize this year. The selection process, which was carried out by a committee chaired by DFG Vice President Prof. Dr. Peter H. Seeberger led the award to only ten winners. The official award ceremony will take place on June 3, 2025 in Berlin.

Höfer's research and its relevance

Richard Höfer works intensively on the mathematical properties of differential equations that describe physical phenomena. A particular focus is on many-body systems in flows. In his research he has made significant advances in the mathematically rigorous treatment of suspensions. He not only analyzes individual particles, but also models complex clouds of particles in order to gain fundamental insights into the interactions between them.

These studies are not just theoretical. They have extensive applications in areas such as environmental and medical technology. After all, suspensions are found in many natural phenomena, such as aerosols and biological fluids. The call informing him of the award came to Höfer during a conference in Marseille, immediately after his lecture.

The President of the University of Regensburg, Prof. Dr. In his statement, Udo Hebel highlights the importance of this award for the university and emphasizes the support of early career scientists. The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 and is named after the nuclear physicist and former DFG President Heinz Maier-Leibnitz.

Additional research funding in Germany

At the same time, the Federal Government in Berlin the “Alexander von Humboldt Professorship”, one of the most valuable international research prizes in Germany. This year, 21 winners were recognized who were eligible for this honor between 2020 and 2022. The Humboldt Professorship is awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The aim is to attract internationally leading scientists to Germany.

These award winners receive prize money of up to five million euros to continue their research activities in Germany. There is a particular focus on recruiting the brightest minds in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). From 2020 to 2024, up to 30 Alexander von Humboldt Professorships for AI will be awarded.

During this event, five researchers were also awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in Bonn. This prize is awarded by the DFG and honors outstanding work from all scientific areas. A total of ten Leibniz Prizes were awarded in 2022, each worth 2.5 million euros. The Leibniz Prize is the most valuable German research funding award and has been awarded annually since 1986.

For Richard Höfer, these recognitions represent an important step in his scientific career and a sign of the high quality of research in Germany, which meets modern challenges and strives for innovative solutions. The developments in the field of differential equations, as dealt with in his current research project, also find significance in specialist literature, such as in the work “Differential equations in strength and deformation theory: elastostatics, beam theory, momentum excitation, pendulum” by Adriano Oprandi, which was published in 2024.