A South African graduate and four other young African scientists from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ethiopia and Togo are among 25 academic individuals to receive prestigious awards for their research at this year’s Green Talent Awards.

Held under the patronage of the German Research Minister Professor Johanna Wanka, the awards are aimed at recognising young talented researchers for the eighth time in as many years, providing a platform to share their innovative and creative ideas which aim to answer pressing sustainability and environmental protection questions of our time.

Musaida Mercy Manyuchi, 33, from Zimbabwe conducted her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology where her research focused on the production of bio-coal for larger domestic purposes using an integrated process.

Throughout the judging process, the jury was impressed by Dr Manyuchi’s compromise with creating sustainable energy sources and by the scope of her work, which aims at effectively using all the products derived from the production of bio-coal as well as biogas from sewage sludge.

A high-ranking jury of experts selected 25 up-and-coming scientists out of 757 applications from over 104 countries. Other scientists representing Africa are from Ghana, Ethiopia and Togo respectively.

The award consists of the “Green Talents – International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development” where the awardees travel through Germany for two weeks, to visit hotspots of green science and to meet the sustainability research elite. In the following year, the Green Talents have the possibility to conduct research in Germany for up to three months.

This year’s “Green Talents” can expect to interact with leading experts and some of the most renowned research institutions and companies, including the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Hamburg University of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Siemens AG and the Southern African Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management.

The 25 awardees will be honoured during a festive award ceremony at the Green Talents Alumni Meeting 2016 attended by representatives of the participating institutions, their experts, jury members, politicians and other distinguished guests. Minister Professor Johanna Wanka will open the conference; Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, will hold a keynote speech on “Climate effects and vulnerability.”

The conference’s highly diversified programme offers all of its participants countless networking possibilities. During the conference Green Talents can get connected to the science community and exchange ideas with key innovators and lay the foundations for future cooperation. Such efforts are supported by the invitation to return to Germany for a fully funded research stay at an institution of the Green Talent’s choice in the year after the award.