(mib) Unexpected honours for Urs Meier, associate director of Empa(1) and ETH Professor of Materials Science (2): Intelligent Sensing for Innovative Structures (ISIS) at Canada Research Network (3) has launched an "Urs Meier Scholarship“. "With a convincing idea, lots of work and a little luck whoever wants to study in Canada can win the scholarship," it said in the Empa communiqué last week. "The successful winner will be able to choose from 15 renowned Canadian universities with which ISIS cooperates. In addition, he or she will be supported by a network of 276 researchers and 33 full-time heads of projects who work in close collaboration with 92 institutions from the private sector."

Urs Meier was taken completely unawares and was quite shocked by the news, he says. Usually, such an honour is only bestowed on a scientist after retirement or post-mortem.

Urs Meier studied civil engineering at ETH and subsequently left to work at MIT in Cambridge. In 1972 he was charged with the setting-up and management of a new division for "plastics and composites“ at EMPA. Seven years later he became head of the building materials sector. Since 1989 Meier has been associate director of Empa and professor at ETH Zurich.

Urs Meier, associate director at EMPA and ETH Professor of Materials Science. Picture: EMPA large

Over the past twenty years Meier has done pioneering work on the use of advanced high-capacity fibre composites in civil engineering structures, for which he has received recognition worldwide, it says in the acclamation. He has been working closely with Canadian engineers since 1988. "With our research on composite materials in civil engineering we were a signpost to a new direction of research for the Canadians," says the ETH professor. It was from this co-operation that ISIS Canada Research Network arose. Founded in 1995, ISIS took up and continued to develop research in adaptive materials techniques.