This grant project brings together teams from the Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Bergen headed by Professor Petr Štěpnička and Professor Vidar Remi Jensen, respectively. The Czech team further consists of Associate Professor Filip Uhlík, Dr. Jiří Schulz, Karel Škoch (PhD. student), Filip Horký and Pavel Měrka (undergraduate students), while the Norwegian partner team includes Dr. Marco Foscato (postdoctoral fellow) and Dr. Giovanni Occhipinti.
These teams posses complementary expertise, focusing on the theoretical (in silico) studies of practically relevant molecules and their synthetic transformations, and on the conventional design, synthesis and evaluation of new ligands suitable for applications in catalysis. This knowledge will be advantageously combined during the course of the grant project to provide a basis for a more rational ligand design, possible understanding of the studied catalytic processes and rationalization of their outcome. The project partners work in accordance (with regular contacts) and in parallel to achieve the proposed research goals, which include the detailed theoretical investigations of the studied and anticipated catalysts (ligands), in silico study of the reaction mechanism of the cross-coupling reactions to be studied as a part of catalyst evaluation, preparation and detailed structural characterization of new polar phosphine donors and their detailed catalytic evaluation in several cross-coupling reactions.