This special honor recognizes his excellent research as well as his commitment to standardization in the field of structural concrete. It also recognizes his extremely successful cooperation with the Faculty of Civil Engineering at TU Dresden, especially in large coordinated research programs of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
The ceremonial bestowal took place in TU Dresden's Ballroom Dülferstraße and was attended by a large number of guests from the academic world as well as family and friends of Professor Hegger. The Rector of TUD, Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger opened the ceremony, followed by Prof. Jürgen Stamm, Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. In his laudation, Prof. Manfred Curbach, Director of the Institute of Concrete Structures at TU Dresden, outlined the life and work of Josef Hegger.
Professor Josef Hegger can look back on an impressive academic career. Throughout his university studies at RWTH Aachen in the field of civil engineering and his specialization in structural engineering, he set the focus of his later work at an early stage. He received his doctorate in civil engineering from TU Braunschweig in 1984 with a thesis on the influence of the type of bond on the ultimate load-carrying capacity of prestressed concrete beams. After working as a project manager for several years, he was appointed to RWTH Aachen University in 1993. As a professor for structural concrete, he headed the institute of the same name for almost three decades and had a lasting influence on teaching, research and standardization. Moreover, Josef Hegger is an authorized expert for structural engineering in the field of structural concrete and associate partner at H+P Ingenieure GmbH, and a member of numerous committees, in most of which he is active on an honorary basis. His role as spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center 532 “Textile-Reinforced Concrete – Development of a New Technology,” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1999 to 2011, is particularly noteworthy. The close connection and cross-university cooperation between the two structural concrete institutes in Dresden and Aachen dates back to this time. This cooperative and mutually beneficial collaboration continues in the current Collaborative Research Center/Transregio 280 “Design Strategies for Material-Minimized Carbon Reinforced Concrete Structures – Principles of a New Approach to Construction”, in which Prof. Hegger is the Aachen site spokesperson.
An energetic spirit always interested in science, Josef Hegger is also co-editor of “Bauingenieur,” a specialist journal of Springer-VDI publishing house. During his scientific career, Prof. Hegger received numerous awards, including the Emil-Mörsch-Denkmünze of the German Concrete and Civil Engineering Association “Deutscher Beton- und Bautechnik-Verein.”
Following the presentation of the Honorary Doctorate Certificate, Prof. Hegger entered his name in TU Dresden's Book of Honorary Doctorates. Subsequently, the honorary doctor gave a lecture on the future of building, in which he presented the necessary steps towards climate-neutral and resource-efficient building.