Double doctorate as a sign of solidarity C hemistry
More than ten years ago, chemists in Eindhoven and Dalian discovered that they each held a crucial piece of a puzzle. The Chinese researchers were experts in Raman spectroscopy, an analytical technique for examining catalysts. The Dutch were leaders in theoretical catalysis, which supports that technique. It would have been illogical not to collaborate. Contact between the two groups was initiated by Professor Li Can of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Professor Rutger van Santen of Eindhoven University of Technology. At the Eindhoven end, Professor Emiel Hensen is now directing the research, a bilateral collaboration programme in the context of the Programme Strategic Scientific Alliances and the Joint Scientific Thematic Research Programme. “It’s very unusual for scientific collaboration to be as close as ours with Dalian. There’s not a single publication where either one of us can say ‘That was your idea and that was mine’.” Another sign of their solidarity consists of the double doctorates: candidates can gain their doctorate simultaneously in Dalian and Eindhoven by doing two years of research in the Netherlands and two years in China. Sustainable fuel Professor Hensen’s group and their research partners at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics are working on catalysis. Catalysts are substances that speed up chemical reactions so that less energy is necessary for all kinds of production processes. The aim of the Sino-Dutch project is to design a new generation of catalysts to extract chemicals and fuels from biomass, for example from
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