The jury conferring the Steinbeis Foundation’s Transfer Award – Löhn Award has honored the outstanding per- sonal contribution to knowledge and technology transfer of Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr.-Ing. E. h. Max Syrbe, a long-standing member of the Board of Trustees und Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Steinbeis Foundation, with a special award.
Max Syrbe was born in Leipzig in 1929 and studied physics in Frankfurt / Main. On completion of his doctorate in 1953 in applied physics / control systems he worked for BBC in Mannheim for 14 years, initially as a development and project engineer and later as director and departmental head of Electronics. In 1968 he took the helm of the Institute for Oscillation Re search (ISF), which in 1970 was renamed the Karlsruhe Fraunhofer Institute IITB.
In 1966 Max Syrbe was appointed to the senate of Fraunhofer Ge sell schaft and in 1983 he became its president. He retained this role until 1993. He was credited with initiating the concept that ensured the further development of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. Max Syrbe insisted on success-based research contracts for pri- vate industry and public administration as the basis for Fraun- hofer becoming the leading organization for applied research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1975, the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Karlsruhe appointed Max Syrbe an honorary professor. Since 1983, Max Syrbe has been a member of the Steinbeis Foundation Board of Trustees and chairman of the Board of Trustees since 1991.
As well as research policy and research management, Max Syrbe’s scientific work has focused primarily on automation and human engineering – especially man-machine systems. Max Syrbe has been awarded the Fraunhofer Sculpture, the highest honor bes- towed by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. He was also an honorary doc- tor of the Department of Engineering Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen and an honorary senator of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. Furthermore, Max Syrbe has been awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the Order of Merit of the Federal State of Bavaria.
In special recognition of his achievements, Max Syrbe received the Steinbeis Foundation’s Transfer Award – Löhn Award.