What's UniSysCat all about?

UniSysCat stands for Unifying Systems in Catalysis. We are a Cluster of Excellence - more than 300 researchers from four universities and four research institutes in the Berlin and Potsdam area - working jointly together on current challenges in the highly relevant field of catalysis.

UniSysCat unites biologists, chemists, engineers and physicists with the aim to revolutionize catalysis research.

News

Researchers from four UniSysCat groups uncovered in two studies how bacteria use two nickel-containing enzymes to convert the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) into energy-rich organic compounds.

"exzellent erklärt" is the podcast of the 57 Clusters of Excellence in Germany. The second episode with experts from UniSysCat is online now: Martin Rahmel and Benjamin Steininger discuss the transformation of chemistry.

A UniSysCat team presents new, extremely reactive silicon cations for potential applications in recycling and green chemistry, including the chemical decomposition of so-called „forever chemicals“.

From Berlin to Melbourne and back: A doctoral student from the UniSysCat research group of Prof. Limberg visited cooperation partners at Monash University in Australia and brought back exciting research results.

Great success for catalysis innovations from TU Berlin: The Nano Cats GmbH wins one of the 2025 Validation Awards in the VIP+ program of the BMFTR. With nanotechnology, they develop coatings for electrodes that save energy.

On July 2, the Vice Presidents of the German Research Foundation (DFG) have been elected. UniSysCat member Prof. Dr. Peter Seeberger, director at the MPICI and the CTC, has been re-elected for his second term in office.

Every year, the Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award honors an outstanding scientist in the field of electrocatalysis. This year, Prof. Dr. Héctor D. Abruña receives the prestigious award named after UniSysCat's spiritus rector.

The EC²/BIG-NSE doctoral program, which is closely linked to UniSysCat, held its annual retreat on 12 and 13 June 2025. PhD students and supervisors shared their research progress and discussed the future of the program.

Six episodes of the German podcast "exzellent erlärt" have been published since February. Listen in as a warm-up for an episode by UniSysCat coming very soon!

On June 28, the Long Night of Science took place in Berlin. UniSysCat contributed to the "Exzcellent Pub Quiz" by Berlin's 7 Clusters of Excellence at TU Berlin. It was a great evening!

Video: About UniSysCat

Video: Hydrogenase in action

Energie-Zeitenwende: Video with Youtuber Tom Bötticher

The Synthesizer Podcast about the transformation of chemistry

Consortium

Unifying Systems in Catalysis (UniSysCat) is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany´s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2008– 390540038