Alexander von Humboldt fellows named

"The Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) has named the winners of the 20^th competition for the Alexander von Humboldt Polish Honorary Research Fellowship. In the programme, two distinguished professors from Germany will carry out a six-month research visit to Poland. The laureates of the 20^th competition are:

• Prof. Stefan Siegmund of Technische Universität Dresden. He will pursue a project entitled ?Qualitative theory of fractional difference operators? during his 6-month stay at the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, in cooperation with Prof. Adam Czornik.
• Prof. Rainer Hillenbrand from the Nanoscience Cooperative Research Center in San Sebastián, Spain. During his 6-month fellowship at the Centre of New Technologies at the University of Warsaw, Prof. Hillenbrand will pursue a project entitled ?Optical phenomena in directionally solidified materials investigated with scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy,? in cooperation with Prof. Dorota Anna Pawlak.

The fellowship is intended to honour the scientific accomplishments of the laureates and to stimulate long-term cooperation between Polish and German researchers. It is a counterpart to the Humboldt-Forschungspreis, a prestigious distinction for foreign scientists from Germany?s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Distinguished, scientifically active German researchers holding the rank of professor are eligible for the Alexander von Humboldt Polish Honorary Research Fellowship. The amount of the fellowship is ?4,000 per month. The competition is open to representatives of all fields of inquiry. The programme is carried out under an agreement from 1995 between FNP and the Humboldt Foundation. Under that agreement, the Foundation for Polish Science joined other organizations with which the Humboldt Foundation has analogous partnerships for mutual recognition of the most distinguished scientists. Through its patron, the name of the fellowship alludes to the finest tradition of cooperation between Polish and German scientists. Alexander von Humboldt (1769?1859), the German naturalist, explorer and geographer, cooperated with many Poles, was an honorary member of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Science, and was the first propagator of the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz in Germany. Including this year?s winners, a total of 64 people have been named laureates in the programme. The Foundation will accept applications for the next competition from the mid-June until 30 September 2017. About the FNP programme: link