CleanPhotoCat—what is the project about?
Andreas Taubert: For about 15 years, we’ve been working on low-cost, low-tech approaches to water treatment. The project grew out of a collaboration with a colleague from Nigeria who, sadly, has since passed away. Our current research focuses on breaking down organic pollutants using light-driven catalytic processes. The goal is to degrade these pollutants as efficiently as possible and, ideally, convert them into harmless products such as carbon dioxide and water. Through this EDUC-WIDE Seed Project, we are essentially bringing together our respective areas of expertise—particle and solid-state chemistry on the one hand, and molecular catalysts on the other.
Nora Kulak: Both are major research fields, but the EDUC-WIDE funding allows us to carry out valuable fundamental research and explore the technical feasibility of these approaches in greater depth. We want to understand the mechanisms by which pollutants are broken down in water.
How did you first learn about the EDUC-WIDE funding opportunity?
Nora Kulak: We were contacted by Ulrike Schmidt from EDUC-WIDE, who asked whether anyone would be interested in collaborating with a Ukrainian research partner looking for international cooperation. The topic was extremely interesting, and I wanted to explore the potential overlap with our own research. I think initiatives like this are incredibly valuable—especially when they come from people who know the field well and have access to the right networks.
Andreas Taubert: We actually receive quite a lot of inquiries about collaborations. The challenge is identifying the ones that will genuinely move our research forward.
The initiative is designed to help researchers at EDUC-WIDE universities establish new collaborations. Was this a completely new experience for you—almost like a blind date?
Andreas Taubert: In this case, you could definitely call it a blind date. Normally, the process works the other way around. You spend years working in a particular field, attend conferences, gradually get to know researchers with similar interests, and eventually decide to launch a joint project. This time it was different. We received the invitation first, and at that point we hardly knew the other research groups.
Nora Kulak: It introduces you to people who might never have crossed your radar otherwise. It’s an excellent way to build new collaborations and keep them active and productive.
One goal of the project is to make it easy for researchers to launch new collaborations. Has that worked in practice?
Nora Kulak: It was quite straightforward for us because our Spanish partner is leading the project and has been very committed throughout the process. We simply wouldn’t have had the time to invest that level of effort ourselves.
Andreas Taubert: Even at this early stage, the project has sparked a number of productive discussions and opened up several new avenues of research. I recently came across a funding opportunity that fits our work very well, and we’re already preparing a project outline together with our Ukrainian and Spanish partners, as well as colleagues from a Fraunhofer Institute.
Nora Kulak: For a project like this to succeed, it’s important to exchange perspectives and discuss the different ways each partner approaches the research topic. Under normal circumstances, that kind of coordination takes quite a while. Here, however, we started with a very concrete project idea, which saved us a great deal of time.
Andreas Taubert: Scientific research is often more unpredictable than people think. Projects can fail because the personal chemistry isn’t right—or thrive because it is. In our case, a combination of chance discoveries and existing connections helped move things forward much more quickly.
The Seed Funds are intended to be just the beginning. What are your plans for the next steps?
Andreas Taubert: We’re planning a workshop in September, and there’s a possibility that it could eventually lead to an EU-funded project. I hope we’ll be able to use our initial results as the basis for a larger funding proposal. Scientifically, our first goal is to gain a better understanding of the structural properties of the materials we need. In the long term, however, we’d like to develop a working prototype.
EDUC-WIDE
EDUC-WIDE is the research program of the European university alliance EDUC, funded through the European Union’s Horizon WIDERA program. Its goal is to expand opportunities for researchers at the participating universities by providing targeted funding and support structures that foster closer collaboration, encourage innovative research ideas, and help establish new international partnerships. A particular focus is the involvement of Ukraine’s Vasyl Stefanyk Carpathian National University, which actively participates in EDUC-WIDE research projects and is therefore becoming more closely integrated into the alliance.
The EDUC-WIDE Seed Projects provide targeted funding for new research collaborations among researchers at EDUC partner universities. With grants of up to €60,000, they enable teams to launch joint research projects that build on shared interests and complementary expertise. Over a period of 12 to 18 months, participating research teams work closely together to develop joint research questions and generate preliminary data that can serve as the foundation for larger funding proposals.
EDUC-WIDE also provides an important platform for early-career researchers, enabling them to build international networks while gaining their first experience in securing research funding and preparing competitive grant applications.
In the long term, EDUC-WIDE pursues two overarching goals: to establish lasting, trust-based research partnerships across the alliance and to foster innovative research ideas with the potential to grow into larger European research initiatives.
https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/educ/index/inform/educ/educ-wide
The Project
Towards Clean Water: PhotoCatalysts for Water Purification (CleanPhotoCat)
Project duration: September 1, 2025 – December 31, 2026
Principal researcher: Prof. Sixto Gimenez, Jaume I University, Spain
Project coordinators at the University of Potsdam and the partner universities:
Prof. Andreas Taubert and Prof. Nora Kulak, Institute of Chemistry, University of Potsdam
Prof. Alexander Shiychuk, Vasyl Stefanyk Carpathian National University, Ukraine