Born 1954 in Munich. 1979 Diploma at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich; 1982 Ph.D. and Dr. rer. nat. at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich. From 1982-1983 Postdoc in Heterogeneous Catalysis at the Cambridge University and in Physics at the Institute for Physics, Switzerland. Group leader at Hoffmann La Roche AG in Basle and Habilitation (Structure of industrial ammonia-synthesis catalysts) at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin. From 1989-1994 Professor for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt. Since 1994 Director at the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max Planck Society und Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Berlin. Since 1998 Honorary Professor at the Humboldt University Berlin and since 2011 Founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion. Since 2013 Honorary Professor at the University Duisburg-Essen. Emeritus.

Robert Schlögl has been awarded as Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), with the Schunck Award for Innovative Materials (1989), the Otto-Bayer-Award (1994) and the DECHEMA Plaque in Titanium (2010).