We very much enjoyed welcoming the rare-earth science community to the 33^rd international conference "Terrae Rarae" ("33. Tage der Seltenen Erden") which was held from October 7 to 9, 2025 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in Karlsruhe/Germany. Its scientific program focused on the chemistry and physics of f-element compounds. The conference was organized by the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) “4f for Future” and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). 

A total of some 180 participants from 14 countries attended this event. 

For those interested, the conference schedule (as of Oct. 9, 2025) can still be found here. The original book of abstracts (PDF file, as of Oct. 1) is also still online (but password-protected) as well as the map of the conference venue (KIT Campus South). 

Should you have any further questions or comments about this conference please feel free to contact us anytime at terrae_rarae∂sfb1573.kit.edu. 

This group photo was taken on the second day of "Terrae Rarae 33" in the main courtyard ("Ehrenhof") of KIT Campus South, standing in front of the Pallas Athene statue. (A higher-resolution image is available for download here.)  

The following photo collage shows a few snapshots from the lectures and poster sessions of the three-day conference. 

The final evening was kicked off by a string trio (consisting of two project leaders of our CRC "4f for Future" - Prof. Dr. Stefanie Dehnen and Prof. Dr. Florian Weigend - and an acquaintance of theirs) who delighted the audience with movements from Beethoven's String Trio Op. 8. 

The conference dinner then culminated in the award ceremony: the Terrae Rarae Award 2025 was presented "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the molecular chemistry of 4f- and 5f-elements" to our guest of honour, Prof. Dr. Stephen T. Liddle, The University of Manchester (UK). He was honoured with a laudatory speech by the chairman Prof. Dr. Peter W. Roesky (KIT). 

Finally, three doctoral researchers received a best poster award for their contributions: Nicole Winterholler from Dr. Elisabeth Kreidt's group (TU Dortmund University) for their contribution on the “Development of Photoswitchable, 3D-Printed Lanthanoid-Based 2D-Microbarcodes”, and Christian Pachl & Daniel Seufert (both KIT) for their joint poster on “An Ideal Testbed for Understanding Magnetic Interactions Between 3d and 4f  Ions by Combining Experiment and Theory”. 

All plenary, oral and poster presentations took place at the Johann-Gottfried-Tulla lecture hall (and facilities) on KIT Campus South (building 11.40: Kollegiengebäude am Ehrenhof).