Professional Career
Personal details
Professor Dr. rer. nat. Dipl. Chem. Gerhard Wegner
Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Ackermannweg 10
D-55128 Mainz
Male; born, January 3, 1940 in Berlin (Germany)
Married, 4 children
Professional Career
1959 - 1965
Study of Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
PhD Thesis in Chemistry with Prof. W. Kern and Prof. R.C. Schulz: 'Anionic Polymerization of Unsaturated Aldehydes'
1965
Dr. rer. nat., University of Mainz
1966 - 1968
Research Staff Chemist, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. USA
1970
Habilitation in Physical Chemistry, University of Mainz Thesis: “Solid-State-Polymerization of Diacetylenes”
1971 - 1974
Assoc. Professor, Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Mainz/Germany
1974 - 1984
Full Professor and Director of Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Freiburg, Germany
1979 - 1981
Dean, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Freiburg
1984 - 2008
(Founding) Director, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz/Germany
Professor, Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Mainz
1996 - 2002
Vice President of the Max Planck Society
2005 - 2011
Vice President of the Akademie der Wissenschaften & Literatur Mainz
2006 - 2012
Commanding Scientific Officer of Institute of Microtechnology-Mainz (IMM)
2008 - present
Emeritus Professor at the MPI-Polymer Research Mainz
Professional Duties
Prof. Wegner served as the chairman of the Chemistry, Physics & Technology Section of the Max Planck Society from 1991 to 1994 and was Vice President of the Max Planck Society from 1996 to 2002. Prof. Wegner was the chairman of the International Max Planck Research School for Polymer Materials Science in Mainz.
From 2006-2011 he acted as CEO of the Institute for Microtechnology – Mainz (IMM) in addition to his duties at MPI-P. IMM is a state-owned, non-profit company located at Mainz offering services in research and technology innovation to small- and middle-sized companies.
Prof. Wegner served as a member of the Board (Universitätsrat) of the University of Saarbrücken from 2003-2013.
He is corresponding member of several Academies, among others Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Amsterdam); he is a full member of Academia Europea and the Academy of Sciences and Literature – Mainz. He served as Vice-President of the latter from 2006-2012.
Starting in 2009 Prof. Wegner was entrusted by the Max-Planck President to develop and implement the Exploratory Round Table Conferences (ERTC) – a joint activity of Max-Planck-Society and the Chinese Academy of the Sciences (CAS).