Physicist Wolfgang Knoll, who was born in 1949, did his PhD at the University of Constance in 1976 and completed his "Habilitation" (the German qualification for a professorship) at Munich Technical University in 1986. Knoll has carried out research at several universities in Germany, the USA, France, Japan and Korea. From 1991 to 1999, he was Director of the "Laboratory for Exotic Nano Materials" at Tokyo's Riken Institute, where he established an internationally renowned research team focusing on experimental plastics research. Since 1993, Prof. Knoll has been heading a study group in the same research area that has cooperated intensively with the Tokyo group.
Shigemasa Suga, who was born in 1945, studied and did his PhD in Applied Physics at the University of Tokyo. For several years, Suga worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics and carried out research at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg. On his return to Japan, he initially worked at the University of Tokyo before becoming a Professor at the University of Osaka in 1989. Suga is regarded as a leading scientist in the field of photo-electron spectroscopy and has cooperated with German researchers in numerous projects.
The Eugen and Ilse Seibold Prize has so far been awarded to Prof. Bruno Lewin, Bochum, Prof. Zentaro Kitagawa, Kyoto, Prof. Hans-Joachim Queisser, Stuttgart, Prof. Yasuo Tanaka, Tokyo, Prof. Dr. Ken'ichi Mishima, Osaka, und Prof. Dr. Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Tokyo.
In 1994, together with American environmentalist Lester Brown, marine geologist and former DFG President Professor Dr. Eugen Seibold was awarded the "Blue Planet Prize", the world's most highly endowed environmental prize, by Japan's Asahi Glass Foundation. Eugen Seibold and his wife donated the prize money to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for the creation of a fund with which the Eugen and Ilse Seibold Prize is financed.
The prize is to be awarded by DFG President Professor Ernst Ludwig Winnacker at the Deutsches Museum, Bonn, at 5 p.m. on the 24th April 2003.