Press Releases Archive

19.10.2016

2016 University Prize for Werner Siemens Foundation

Tübingen pays tribute to outstanding sponsor of preclinical imaging – Special address by University of California’s Prof. Simon Cherry

University of Tübingen President Bernd Engler has presented its 2016 University Prize to the Werner Siemens Foundation. He made the award “for excellence and innovation” on Wednesday at the Dies Universitatis event welcoming students to the new academic year. The Werner Siemens Foundation has donated 12.3 million euros since 2006 - endowing a professorship and doctoral conventions, and funding the construction and equipping of the new Werner Siemens Imaging Center. In the coming years, the Foundation will invest a further 15.6 million in the development of new imaging techniques.

President Engler described the Foundation’s support as something very special. “The magnitude of the sponsorship and of the trust the Werner Siemens Foundation has given us is remarkable. It has supported the Imaging Center without making any conditions, trusting that its funds will be used to the greatest possible benefit of research. This is a tremendous boon for scientific research and gives us great freedom - it is research funding par excellence.”

The president of the Leibniz Association, Professor Matthias Kleiner, said “I can only confirm the care and thought the Werner Siemens Foundations puts into its funding decisions. They are focused and guided by the thought of making possible something new and unprecedented, of identifying pioneers who need support and confirmation for their promising ideas.” Kleiner, who held the laudation, added that the Siemens Foundation sponsorship was helping “to establish Tübingen as an internationally-recognized location for preclinical imaging.” The special address was held by Professor Simon Cherry of the University of California, Davis.

Werner von Siemens (1816–1892) was an inventor and entrepreneur who brought vision and impetus to the fledgling electroindustry in the second half of the ninteenth century. The Switzerland-based Werner Siemens Foundation was established in 1923 by Werner Siemens’ two neices. It supports projects in the areas of education, training, and youth sponsorship; in the sciences, particularly in technology and the natural sciences; and in health and nature.

The annual University Prize honors sponsors and partners of the University who have made outstanding contributions to research or teaching.