The Poznań Senate of the University of Technology took the decision to grant the highest academic distinction to Prof. Roland Wiesendanger on 17 December 2014, at the request of the Board of the Faculty of Technical Physics. The proposal received the support of the Senates of the Jagiellonian University, Gdańsk University of Technology and the Scientific Council of the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

According to researchers worldwide, scientific achievements of the recipient of the honorary doctorate is of fundamental importance for the development of nanotechnology. His specialisations include scanning probe microscopy and studies of magnetism in the nanometer scale and at the level of single atoms.

"Professor Roland Wiesendanger is not only an outstanding scientist, educator full of passion and dedication, but also a great organizer of academic and scientific life, who devotes a large part of his time to working with young people" - Rector of Poznań University of Technology Prof. Tomasz Łodygowski said during the ceremony.

Prof. Wiesendanger is a graduate of the University of Basel, where he studied experimental physics. He received Ph.D. and postdoctoral degrees in the field of solid state physics, including scanning microscopy and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STM/S). In 1992 he was appointed professor at the University of Hamburg, where he launched the Microstructure Advanced Research Center.

"On few years time, Prof. Wiesendanger’s laboratory advanced to the group of world\'s leading centres, also due to achieving the best resolution capability in imaging the surface structure, nanostructures and individual molecules, as well as the research on magnetic properties of single molecules and atoms using a scanning tunneling microscopes and atomic force microscopes" - noted Dean of the Faculty of Technical Physics, Poznań University of Technology and honorary doctorate promoter Prof. Ryszard Czajka.

"Despite the enormous workload, Prof. Wiesendanger is friendly, open and helpful in relations, also in contacts with Polish scientists, which brings Polish science, and our university in particular, the benefits that are difficult to overrate" - said Czajka.

In his speech, Wiesendanger repeatedly referred to his close relations with the Poznań university and Wielkopolska. "I\'ve always felt - when visiting Poznań - that the value of science and technology, as well as its positive impact on our society, are appreciated in this city" - he emphasised.

The German scholar is co-chairman of the International Conference on Scanning Probe Spectroscopy and Related Methods, which since 1997 has been held regularly at Poznań University of Technology and the University of Hamburg.

The scientist is the author of over 520 publications, including books, textbooks and articles for scientific journals. The most important awards and distinctions conferred on Professor include the Gaede Prize awarded by the German Vacuum Society, the Max Auwärter Award of the Austrian Physical Society (1992), the Philip Morris Foundation\'s research prize (which he received together with Dr. Matthias Bode in 2003.), and AVS Nanotechnology Recognition Award of the American Vacuum Society (2010).

He is also a member of the German Academy of Sciences "Leopoldina", the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, the German National Academy of Science and Engineering "Acatech", full member of the American Vacuum Society and a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Roland Wiesendanger is the 36th scientist to receive an honorary doctorate from Poznań University of Technology. The group of scientists who received the highest academic distinction include Professors Władysław Orlicz, Teobald Olejnik, Bernard Roy, Peter Wriggers, Alfred Fettweis and Jan A. Oleszkiewicz.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland

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