Prof. Robert Schlögl was appointed as acting director of the former Max Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry in October 2011. Shortly thereafter, in 2012, the ceremonial announcement by the President of the Max Planck Society at the Annual Meeting of the MPG marked the start of the excellent research work of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion with Prof. Schlögl as both Executive and Founding Director. In the following years, Prof. Schlögl established the institute as a research institution on energy conversion with his clear vision and commitment.

Under his leadership, the various research departments addressed the fundamental processes involved in the storage and conversion of energy.

Initially, Prof Schlögl worked with Prof Wolfang Lubitz (Biophysical Chemistry), who retired in 2017, and Prof Frank Neese (Molecular Theory and Spectroscopy), who moved to the neighboring Max Planck Institute für Kohlenforschung in 2017. In recent years, Robert Schlögl continued the successful research work at MPI CEC with his colleagues Prof. Serena DeBeer (Inorganic Spectroscopy) and Prof. Walter Leitner (Molecular Catalysis).

Today, the institute employs more than 300 persons including scientists, students and PhD students from over 40 nations.

On Thursday, March 31, 2022, Prof. Schlögl retired after ten years during an institute meeting. The entire institute expresses its deep gratitude to Prof. Schlögl for his work and is pleased that he will remain with the institute as an honored guest.

He will be succeeded as managing director by Prof. Leitner. Prof. Leitner was appointed Director at MPI CEC and Head of the Department of Molecular Catalysis in 2017.