The Award Winners are selected by permanent committees at the Institutes of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Department of Physics at Freie Universität Berlin, with additional input from professors at other universities. Proposals and nominations by nationally and internationally renowned scientists are also taken into consideration. Self-nominations are not accepted.

The legacy of the original founder Otto Klung requires that this honor is bestowed upon outstanding younger German scientists under the age of 40 at the time of the award ceremony.

The final decision on the selection proposal is made by the Otto Klung Foundation and the Dr. Wilhelmy Foundation.

Committee for Chemistry:	Committee for Physics:
Prof. Dr. Eckart Rühl, FU Berlin (Chair)	Prof. Dr. Piet Brouwer, FU Berlin (Chair)
Prof. Dr. Mathias Christmann, FU Berlin	Prof. Dr. Robert Bittl, FU Berlin
Prof. Dr. Matthias Drieß, TU Berlin (Award Winner 2000)	Prof. Dr. Andreas Buchleitner, University of Freiburg
Prof. Dr. Rainer Haag, FU Berlin	Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Eberhardt, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Hasenstab-Riedel, FU Berlin	Prof. Dr. Katharina J. Franke, FU Berlin
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hecht, PhD DWI Aachen (Award Winner 2010)	Prof. Dr. Ingolf Hertel, Max Born Institute Berlin
Prof. Dr. Petra Knaus, FU Berlin	Prof. Dr. Roland Netz, FU Berlin
Prof. Dr. Beate Paulus, FU Berlin	Prof. Dr. Hermann Nicolai, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Award Winner 1991)
Prof. Dr. Hans-Ulrich Reißig, (Honorary Member) FU Berlin	Prof. Dr. Felix von Oppen, FU Berlin
	Prof. Dr. Martin Wolf, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society
	Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Bennemann, (Honorary Member) FU Berlin
	Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Günter Kaindl, (Honorary Member) FU Berlin