I have decided to outline in this editorial my thoughts concerning education and research, as this is central to the topic of this special issue of the Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry. Most of the contributions concern education at universities, some also at college level. Nobody will deny that education is of pivotal importance for developing science as the main means to improve the life of humans and to sustain our world. However, education is also a value in its own: it is the basis of cultivating virtuous habits, it enriches our culture, and it is a source of pleasure.

The topic of education in electrochemistry has been previously addressed by several authors [e.g. 1,2,3]. These papers are valuable, especially for their focus on didactics and contents of curricula. However, so far, no electrochemical journal has yet attempted to publish a complete issue devoted to this topic. The suggestion for this special of the Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry came from Yair Ein-Eli, my successor as Editor-in-Chief. When we have sent out invitations to submit manuscripts for this issue, we have received so many agreements that it was clear that a comprehensive and meaningful issue can be assembled. The very fact that the agreements came from colleagues with highest standing as scientists can be seen as a convincing proof that the Humboldtian ideal of the unity of research and education [4] is still very much alive. The revolutionary ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) (Fig. 1), now known as the Humboldtian model of higher education, were implemented for the first time when the Berlin University (now the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) was founded in 1810. They stood godfather for the first research Universities in the US (John Hopkins and Harvard) [5] and put their stamp on many universities around the world. It is remarkable, but also very natural, that the idea of unity of research and education is still so deeply anchored in the minds of scientists, despite the impugnments by the so-called neoliberal restructuring of universities, which puts priority to a market-orientation. It seems that a majority of scientists stick to the Humboldtian ideal because they understand its power and value. Since Wilhelm von Humboldt is less known among scientists than his brother Alexander, the following needs to be added here: Wilhelm von Humboldt was a linguist, philosopher, diplomat, and Prussian government functionary. Thus, he was a full-blooded representative of the humanities, finally achieving so much also for science! In 1809, he was appointed as director of the new Department of Education (Sektion des Kultus und des öffentlichen Unterrichts) of Prussia. In a report to the Prussian King, he wrote: “There are undeniably certain kinds of knowledge that must be of a general nature and, more importantly, a certain cultivation of the mind and character that nobody can afford to be without. People obviously cannot be good craft workers, merchants, soldiers or businessmen unless, regardless of their occupation, they are good, upstanding and – according to their condition – well-informed human beings and citizens. If this basis is laid through schooling, vocational skills are easily acquired later on, and a person is always free to move from one occupation to another, as so often happens in life” (Translation according to [6]). From this, it is clear that the Humboldtian reform of the educational system of Prussia had a very wide and far-reaching scope, aiming to liberate academia from some of the previous most severe class barriers, and giving universities substantial freedom, i.e. a certain degree of independence from the state. The abovementioned neoliberal reorganisation, which is in fact a market- and profit-oriented venture, goes hand in glove with the discrimination of scientists, who stick to fundamental research, which is regarded as useless or at least as not profitable at the moment. It made me very sad to see scientists of international standing being dismissed from academia, because they did not acquire sufficient funds (this did not happen in Germany, where we are still distant from similar decisions). Loosing excellent scientist for such reasons certainly endangers the educational potential of universities. The present situation of academia has been excellently analysed by Velazquez in his book The Rise of the Scientist-Bureaucrat [7].

Fig. 1
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Top: Wilhelm von Humboldt monument in front of the main building of Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. The University of Berlin opened in 1810 as “Universität zu Berlin”. From 1828 to 1945, its name was “Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität”, and since 1949, it keeps the name‚ “Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin” in honour of the brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. (https://www.hu-berlin.de/de/pr/medien/multimedia/bilderservice/gebaeude/campus-mitte/hauptgebaeude/Wilhelm%20von%20Humboldt_0132_Foto%20Heike%20Zappe.jpg/view). Bottom: The monument of Alexander von Humboldt is on the right side of the main building. (https://www.rbb24.de/politik/thema/2020/coronavirus/beitraege_neu/2020/07/berlin-humboldt-uni-corona-kosten-digitaler-lehrbetrieb.html, imago-images/Schöning)

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The idea is old that sciences and humanities should be taught to students by people who are actively developing their own topics. It was ever again challenged by the argument that researchers should be spared from teaching to give them full power for research, and teaching can be very well accomplished by lecturers, who are not so much inclined to or gifted for research. The question, who is better in teaching, cannot be answered unambiguously. There are many examples for both cases. However, the number of excellent researchers, who could enthral students because of their intimate knowledge of the topic, and the ability to enrich lectures with own findings, is overwhelming. Further, we should never forget that nothing is more inspiring for a researcher than teaching and being confronted with the questions of students. Ample examples can be cited here: one is Walther Nernst (1864–1941), who developed his idea of the 3rd law of thermodynamics while lecturing. This happened, by the way, in the lecture hall of the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin (Fig. 2). In the same lecture hall, the author of this editorial attended lectures on chemical thermodynamics given by a reader, who was much more active in lecturing than in research; however, his lectures were great examples of clarity and exactness and could spark the enthusiasm of students for thermodynamics. For sure, he was an exception from the above discussed rule of thumb that lecturing and research has always to be in one hand.

Fig. 2
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Top: Former Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, later of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Bunsenstraße 1, Berlin. (Foto: Dguendel/CC BY 4.0) Bottom: Walther Nernst Lecture Hall in that building. (http://www.nernst.de/pci-berlin/auditorium1985.jpg)

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The Humboldtian model of higher education also emphasizes a holistic approach comprising sciences and humanities. For German speakers, who name sciences Naturwissenschaften and humanities Geisteswissenschaften, the demand for a joint education in both Wissenschaften (sciences) was probably always rather easy to accept, simply from a linguistic point of view. Many have contemplated the danger of separating sciences from humanities. George Orwell wrote in October 1945 [8]: “Just before writing this, I saw in an American magazine the statement that a number of British and American physicists refused from the start to do research on the atomic bomb, well knowing what use would be made of it. Here you have a group of sane men in the middle of a world of lunatics. And though no names were published, I think it would be safe guess that all of them were people with some kind of general cultural background, some acquaintance with history of literature and arts -in short, people whose interests were not, in the current sense of the world, purely scientific”.

Coming back to the topic of this special issue, education and electrochemistry, we have to remember that modern university research (with some few exceptions) is unthinkable without funding from industry and funding agencies. However, the acquisition of funds, i.e. writing of research proposals, frequently distracts not a few highly gifted scientists, not only from serious research (and thinking!), but also from teaching activities. Here, somebody may demur that writing research proposal is a highly demanding process, which produces new ideas. Yes, no doubt, it can be so, and it is so in some cases. However, I argue that in many more cases the research proposals are uninspired and motivated mainly by a search for topics, which have the best chance to get funded.

Furthermore, it should not be concealed that the overflowing administrative duties distract researchers from scientific and teaching activities. The first victims are the students; however, the next victim is science as a whole! If we do not adequately qualify the next generations of scientists, we will lose in the long run. Looking at this special issue, it seems that I have painted a too pessimistic picture. Since so many scientists are eager to share their own experience in education with the community of electrochemists, the battle is not yet lost and we can be optimistic! And, the future of education is doubtless bright: I am sure that artificial intelligence and machine learning can change education tremendously. I have only some objections against the term “artificial intelligence”, since I relate the highest form of “intelligence” with the divine sparksFootnote 1 of human thinking, which gave us the ideas of gravitation, relativity, heliocentricity, etc., not to speak of the philosophical systems. I think that the term “artificial cleverness” would be much more appropriate for what we now call artificial intelligence. Possibly, we will get real artificial intelligence once in future.

The changes, which we see in the organisation and function of universities, are irreversible, and we have to see how we can retain the positive achievements of the past, while simultaneously make use of the positive features of the new developments. This is our challenge and its resolving will determine the value of university research and teaching in future.

The contributions to this special issue are very diverse and touch almost all aspects of electrochemistry in education. Training of future electrochemists and science students in electrochemistry is based on (i) lectures, (ii) seminars, (iii) calculation exercises (both in seminars and homework), and (iv) laboratory experiments, including computer applications. All four activities have to go together and have to be coordinated; however, the weight of each activity may differ, depending on the specific courses and local conditions. Further, all four activities can tremendously benefit from the Internet: it is great that we can transmit lectures to any place where students are, and it is of great value that stored lectures can be re-attended. These advantages apply to a lesser extend to seminars and lab experiments. The corona shutdown of universities showed very clearly that lectures given in presence of the lecturer and students in one room, should never be completely replaced by stored lectures! I have given all my lectures in such way that I had a dialogue with the students, asking them questions, and stimulating questions of the students. Although this is also possible via the net, the dialogue never reaches that degree of activity and vividness as a live lecture. Not to speak about the disadvantages of having a headset and looking all the time at a screen.

Now, let me tell you my opinion about the choice of language for teaching. This is no question for the Anglophonic world, but it is a very serious question in all other parts of the world. Presently, English is the globally leading language in science. It is necessary that everybody studying science has to be able to understand English publications and to freely express himself in that language. Although automatic translations have already reached a very high degree of perfection and will for sure be further improved, a person having full command of more than one language will tremendously benefit from his abilities. This is so in electrochemistry as in all other branches of science. The only question is how can we achieve a sufficient command of English by our students? Many propose that we have to give our lectures completely in English. I disagree: we should give selected lectures in English, but not all. The main reason is that we also have to qualify our students to speak about their science in their native language. The national environment in the non-Anglophonic countries is such that most people will not understand somebody speaking about the complex issues of science in English. At this point, we should remember the unfortunate situation in Middle Age Europe, when the savants spoke and wrote exclusively in Latin! Enlighted theologians like Martin Luther (1483–1546) in Germany, William Tyndale (~ 1494–1536) in England, and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1450 or 1455–1536) in France liberated their countries from the domination of Latin language in the world of scholars by translating the bible to German, English, and French. An equally important role played the bible translations to practically all other European national languages. This started an unprecedented development of education, humanities, and sciences. From the perspective of all non-Anglophonic countries, a scientific world in which the native languages are excluded from the educational systems would be a disaster and put us back to conditions like in the Latin-dominated Middle Age. If we want to keep education as barrier-free as possible, every nation has to preserve and develop its own science language, while simultaneously being able to barrier-free communicate with all other nations using the present lingua franca of science, i.e. in English. If you like to understand how science languages developed from the fall of Latin to the rise of English, you may consult the terrific book Scientific Babel of Michael D. Gordin [9]. The importance of national languages in teaching also includes the textbook literature. Although a good number of English textbooks is available (see the list of references in [10]), the number of excellent non-English textbooks is much smaller (nice exceptions are in French [11], in German [12, 13], in Hungarian [14], in Portuguese [15, 16], in Russian [17, 18], and in Spanish [19, 20]). Unfortunately, now translations of English textbooks are also rare, since the production costs are high and the markets small. The general question, what role textbooks will play in future, has at least two aspects: on one side, students are collecting learning material from all sources of the Internet, and this diminishes the importance of classical textbooks. On the other side, only textbooks can provide a consistent approach, i.e. a consistent nomenclature and organisation, leading from the basics to the advanced theories. This is why I believe that textbooks will keep important and cannot be substituted by the variety of Internet resources (not to speak about the unreliability of so many Internet sources). However, textbooks need to be supplemented by continuous publication of modern and peer-reviewed texts, as the pace of producing new textbooks is naturally very slow. It was that idea, which let me to establish the journal ChemTexts – The Textbook Journal of Chemistry [21], in which all topics of chemistry are covered, including electrochemistry. The extraordinary high numbers of downloads prove that there is a real demand for such texts. ChemTexts – The Textbook Journal of Chemistry realises a principle, which the German engineer Oskar Lasche (1868–1923) has envisaged already in 1922, when he called for a “living textbook” (in German: lebendes Lehrbuch) [22], which is constantly updated (see also [23]). In that journal, a good number of papers related to electrochemistry have been published in order to improve its education [24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48].

Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) was once asked, how to select those students as early as possible, who will later excel and bring the greatest benefits for the society [49]. The question came from a Japanese official who had the task of spending a large amount of extra money to support those students, who allow to expect the greatest return in intellectual performance. Ostwald remembered all his students and concluded that the most promising students can be discerned, when considering who of them was not satisfied by the regular teaching and wanted to get more to learn and understand! This brings me to the very inspiring and productive role of students in the process of teaching: not only that they challenge our own understanding of science, they also challenge our teaching. Teaching is impossible without a continuous learning of the teacher! I hope that the many stimulations and suggestions given by the authors of the papers in this special issue will contribute to further improvements in teaching electrochemistry and, by doing so, also contribute to the future development of electrochemistry.