Professor Manfred Scheer, University of Regensburg, Germany, was awarded the Wilhelm Klemm Prize, which is presented for extraordinary achievements in the field of inorganic chemistry. The prize was presented at the Wissenschaftsforum Chemie 2013, on September 2.

Scheer is recognized for his innovative work in the fields of molecular and supramolecular chemistry, in particular, the synthesis of compounds containing transition metal/element multiple bonds and the chemistry of complexes containing substituent-free group 13 and 15 element ligands.

Manfred Scheer studied at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, where he was awarded his PhD, supervised by Alfred Tzschach and Klaus Jurkschat, in 1983. He remained at the same institution until 1992, when he completed his habilitation. He also spent periods as a postdoctoral researcher with Vladimir E. Federov at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Science, Novosibirsk (1985–1986), and as a visiting fellow with Günther Wilke at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany (1990–1991). From 1992–1993, he was a guest professor with Malcolm H. Chisholm at Indiana University Bloomington, USA, and in 1993, he joined the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, as a Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation), and was made associate professor there in 1996. He was made full professor at the University of Regensburg, Germany, in 2004.

Scheer´s research interests include coordination and supramolecular chemistry with polypnictogen complexes, the use of unsubstituted main-group elements as ligands, and the synthesis of highly reactive compounds with transition-metal/element multiple bonds.

Selected publications by Rieger:

• Ferrocene and Pentaphosphaferrocene – A Comparative Study Regarding Redoxchemistry,
  Mikhail V. Butovskiy, Gábor Balázs, Michael Bodensteiner, Eugenia V. Peresypkina, Alexander V. Virovets, Manfred Scheer,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 2972–2976.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201209329
• The Oligomerization of Phosphinoborane by Titanium Complexes,
  Christine Thoms, Christian Marquardt, Alexey Y. Timoshkin, Michael Bodensteiner, Manfred Scheer,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 5150–5154,
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201209703
• P–P Bond Formation via Reductive Dimerization of [Cp*Fe(η⁵-P₅)] by Divalent Samarocenes,
  T. Li, M. T. Gamer, M. Scheer, S. N. Konchenko, P. W. Roesky,
  Chem. Commun. 2013, 49(22), 2183–2185.
  DOI: 10.1039/c3cc38841g