DFG and Polish FNP present award to researcher from Jena and researcher from Poznań / Award ceremony to take place in Warsaw in June

In recognition of their achievements in connection with German–Polish collaboration in science and the humanities, Professor Dr. Dorothee Haroske of the University of Jena and Professor Dr. Leszek Skrzypczak of the University of Poznań are the recipients of the Copernicus Award, presented by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP). The award will be presented by DFG President Professor Dr. Katja Becker and FNP President Professor Dr. Krzysztof Pyrć on 2 June 2026 in Warsaw. Endowed with €200,000, the award is presented every two years.

The eight-member jury, comprising researchers from Germany and Poland, recognised Dorothee Haroske and Leszek Skrzypczak for their nearly twenty years of joint research in the field of analysis and partial differential equations. Their most important accomplishments include the establishment of links between different areas of functional analysis. According to the jury, the close collaboration between the two researchers made a key contribution to the development of the theory of function spaces and its application in operator theory by developing a unifying perspective. A groundbreaking result of their research is, so the Jury, the precise characterization of the nuclearity of the Fourier Transform on Besov and Triebel-Lizorkin Spaces.

The collaboration between Haroske and Skrzypczak has given rise to numerous joint publications in renowned mathematical journals, and they have frequently organised specialist conferences together. All in all, the jury stated, this makes the bilateral collaboration between Dorothee Haroske and Leszek Skrzypczak a model of German-Polish cooperation that is recognised in mathematics worldwide. The jury praised their joint work as a combination of outstanding expertise, the courage to tackle mathematically challenging problems, and a strong commitment to academic careers, enabling them to create an environment that is also attractive to early career researchers, whom they likewise support jointly.

Dorothee Haroske studied mathematics at the University Jena and at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. After completing her doctorate and habilitation (post-doctoral lecturing qualification) in Jena and holding a DFG Heisenberg fellowship, she was appointed Professor of Function Spaces at the University of Jena, following periods in Kaiserslautern, Marburg, Hannover and Rostock. Her research expertise, for which she has received several university awards for research and teaching over the course of her career, focuses on function spaces, approximation theory, Fourier analysis and functional analysis.

Leszek Skrzypczak completed his doctorate and habilitation (post-doctoral lecturing qualification) at the University of Poznań, to which he returned as a professor after research stays in Warsaw and Jena. For his research on function spaces and differential operators, he has successfully secured third-party funding, including from the National Science Centre (NCN), another of the DFG’s Polish partner organisations. He currently heads the mathematical, physics and computer science research focus at the University of Poznań as part of the programme “Excellence Initiative – Research University (IDUB)” by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.. He has received the W. Orlicz Prize of the Polish Mathematical Society (PTM) for his research.

The Copernicus Award has been presented every two years since 2006 to one academic personality from Germany and one from Poland. Award recipients may come from any scientific discipline. The award is named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and aims to reflect the close research collaboration between the two countries. The prize money is contributed in equal parts by the DFG and the FNP; the award winners each receive half and can use this sum for all academic purposes promoted through the programmes offered by the two organisations. One particular objective is to focus on intensifying joint support of researchers in early career phases.

Founded in 1991, the FNP is an independent and financially autonomous non-profit Polish NGO dedicated to promoting research. It signed a collaboration agreement with the DFG in 2005 which includes the joint presentation of the Copernicus Award.



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