The DGM Award Winners 2026

With its 2026 awards, the German Society for Materials Science (DGM) honours individuals who shape materials science and engineering in very different ways. This year’s award winners reflect the full breadth of the field: from atomic interfaces to corrosion, tribology, sea ice, biomaterials and high-temperature materials, all the way to additive manufacturing, materials informatics and institutional design. The honours will be presented as part of DGM Day on September 28, 2026, in Darmstadt, Germany, and online.

A professional society always tells a story about itself through its awards. It shows which achievements it considers groundbreaking, which developments it wants to make visible within the field and which individuals it sees as shaping the community. Awards therefore mark where a discipline is looking, the standards it sets and how it understands the future.

At the German Society for Materials Science (DGM), this perspective spans the entire scientific career and beyond. The awards range from the early scientific career to independent research achievements and application-oriented developments and on to scientific breakthroughs, lifetime achievements and exceptional service to the society itself. Anyone looking at the 2026 award winners therefore sees no single topic, no single method and no single generation. What becomes visible is a field in all its breadth: demanding, dynamic, application-oriented and socially relevant.

The work of this year’s award winners ranges from atomic interfaces and complex stress fields to corrosive environments, natural material systems and bioactive materials, and on to additive manufacturing processes, digital research data and institutional responsibility. That is precisely the strength of materials science and materials engineering: it connects scales, disciplines, methods and perspectives. It asks about the smallest structures and about large-scale interrelations. It develops new materials and new tools but also new forms of collaboration.

In the lead-up to DGM Day, the DGM will spotlight the 2026 award winners in a weekly interview series. In the coming weeks, one honoured individual at a time will be introduced and talk about research, motivation, disciplinary developments and perspectives on the materials science and materials engineering of tomorrow. 

DGM Early Career Award

The DGM Prize for Young Talent is aimed at doctoral candidates and doctoral graduates whose degree at the time of nomination is no more than two years in the past. It recognizes early scientific achievements in materials science and materials engineering research and highlights who can be expected to provide special impulses at the very start of a scientific career. In 2026, Antje Dollmann, Johanna Frenck, Raghav Pathak and  Tim Schwarz receive this award. Four names, four research paths, four approaches to a shared ambition: to better understand complex material systems.

Masing Memorial Prize 2026

The Masing Memorial Prize recognizes independent scientific research by young DGM members published in the two years prior to the award ceremony. Named after Georg Masing, the long-standing DGM chair and honorary chair, this award focuses on independent scientific contributions beyond the dissertation. In 2026, Xufei Fang receives this award.

Georg Sachs Prize 2026

The Georg Sachs Prize scientific work, preferably that which is closely related to the practice of materials science and engineering. In 2026, the award goes to Konrad Kosiba, whose work combines additive manufacturing of metallic materials with digitalization and machine learning.

DGM Pioneer 2026

The DGM Pioneer honors outstanding achievements by a DGM member for sustainable collaboration between academia and industry. The focus is on the successful transfer of materials-science insights into technical applications. In 2026, Tilmann Hickel receives this award.

DGM Prize 2026

The DGM Prize is aimed at excellent scientists in the middle of their research careers. It recognizes outstanding scientific or scientific-technical achievements that constitute a documented breakthrough or have opened up a new field of research. In 2026, Frank Walther receives this award.

Heyn Commemorative Medal 2026

The Heyn Commemorative Medal is the DGM’s highest honor. Named after the first DGM chair, Emil Heyn, it recognizes achievements in materials science and materials engineering that have led to significant advances in scientific, technological, or economic terms. It can, in particular, honor the lifetime work of an outstanding individual. In 2026, Aldo R. Boccaccini and Martin Heilmaier receive this highest distinction of the DGM.

DGM Honorary Membership 2026

DGM honorary membership recognizes members who have rendered outstanding service to the society in material or ideal terms. It expresses gratitude to individuals who have shaped the DGM as a community, network, and institution. In 2026, Frank Mücklich and Gerhard Schneider will be awarded honorary membership of the German Society for Materials Science.

These honours create a multifaceted picture of materials science and materials engineering in 2026. It is a field that addresses everything from the atomic scale to societal challenges. It develops new alloys, ceramics, biomaterials, and manufacturing processes, as well as digital infrastructures and resilient networks. It needs precise experiments, robust models, industrial translation and people who take responsibility for the community.

The 2026 award winners show which topics are driving materials science and materials engineering and which individuals are advancing it. They stand for scientific curiosity, methodological care, international collaboration, support for early-career researchers, a mindset of transfer and institutional commitment.

(Source: DGM – German Society for Materials Science)