Frank Härtig

Prof. Frank Härtig, is Vice President of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), and assumed the presidency of the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) in 2021. He spearheads this non-governmental federation of 42 member organizations concerned with the worldwide advancement of measurement technology.

He has an international profile and has undertaken a breadth of activities over many years, making many notable contributions to measurement internationally, including PTB’s contribution to the development of new standards for the kilogram (using the silicon sphere approach). He recognizes that advanced measurement technology is essential for economic development and cutting-edge research and overcoming the challenges that lie ahead — global digitalization, the reorganization of our energy supply, climate change mitigation or future quantum technologies — cannot be met without having reliable measurement techniques at our disposal.

Professor Härtig studied mechanical engineering at Karlsruhe University (TH) becoming a graduate engineer and took an external doctorate at the Institute for Tooling Machines and Industrial Engineering of Karlsruhe University, becoming Dr.-Ing (equivalent to PhD Engineering). After working for several commercial companies for more than a decade, he joined PTB in April 1995. After 25 years he became, in May 2020, Vice-President of PTB and a member of their Executive Committee.

He is highly international in his outlook — he also has been Professor (honoris causa) from Harbin Institute of Technology (in 2016) and held a Guest Professorship at Beijing University of Technology from 2016-2018. His work has been award winning — he held the Technology Transfer Award of the IHK (Chamber of Industry and Commerce) Braunschweig 2019 (Härtig F., with Lehrmann K., Meeß R., Wiedenhöfer T.) and the Seifriz Award in 2020 for ‘The roundest spheres in the world – German craft businesses and PTB work hand in hand’ (Härtig F., again with Lehrmann K., Meeß R., Wiedenhöfer T.). He was awarded the Finkelstein Medal of the UK Institute of Measurement & Control in 2021.