The 2026 Dominique Givord Award goes to Burkard Hillebrands
The European Magnetism Association (EMA) has announced that RPTU Professor Burkard Hillebrands will receive the 2026 Dominique Givord Award. With this award, the EMA recognizes his outstanding contributions to magnetism research as well as his significant influence on the European magnetism community. The award, which is presented every three years, is considered the highest European honor in the field of magnetism.
In its announcement, the EMA particularly highlights Hillebrands’ scientific achievements: Through the further development of Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and the realization of magnon-based logic devices, he has established magnonics as a central field of modern magnetism. At the same time, the EMA recognizes his “dedicated leadership and influential, deeply supportive presence” within the magnetism community, which has contributed significantly to strengthening European magnetism research.
Professor Hillebrands studied physics at the University of Cologne, where he received his Diplom in 1982 and his Ph.D. in 1986. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Optical Sciences Center in Tucson, Arizona, he completed his habilitation at RWTH Aachen University in 1993. In 1994, he accepted a position as an associate professor at the University of Karlsruhe before moving to the University of Kaiserslautern (now RPTU) as a full professor in 1995, where he taught until 2025 and now serves as a senior professor. As a highly respected member of the scientific community, he held several key leadership positions, including, from 2016 to 2017, that of Scientific Director and Executive Board Member of the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden, as well as, from 2006 to 2014, that of Vice President for Research, Technology, and Innovation at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. He is a founding member of the EMA and served as its president from 2019 to 2022. Even after retiring from active teaching, he continues to share his experience and is actively involved—in collaboration with external coaches, among others—in mentoring and coaching as part of the RPTU’s efforts to support early-career researchers.
The Dominique Givord Award for Advancing Magnetism in Europe has been presented every three years by the European Magnetism Association since 2020. The award honors scientists who have made significant contributions to the advancement of magnetism research and the magnetism community in Europe. The award honors the memory of French physicist Dominique Givord, one of the co-founders of the EMA, who passed away in 2019.
The award ceremony will take place during the Joint European Magnetic Symposia (JEMS) 2027, which will be held in Prague from August 29 to September 3, 2027. On this occasion, Hillebrands will deliver a presentation during the plenary session.