MED-EL Founders Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair Receive Horst Scheunemann Medal of Honor 2025
18 October 2025 – (Innsbruck, Austria): On 17 October 2025, Dr. Ingeborg Hochmair and Prof. Erwin Hochmair, the founders of MED-EL, were awarded the Horst Scheunemann Medal 2025 at the annual conference of the Society for Skull Base Surgery e.V. (GSB). The prestigious award recognizes their pioneering contributions to the field of cochlear implants and their interdisciplinary cooperation, which have significantly advanced the science of skull base surgery.
Dr Ingeborg Hochmair and her husband, Prof. Erwin Hochmair, jointly developed the world’s first microelectronic, multi-channel cochlear implant. This pioneering technology allows people with severe to profound hearing loss to hear (again) and integrate into the hearing world.
"We feel very honored with this award," says Dr. Ingeborg Hochmair. "It reflects the dedication of many committed people who combine technical expertise with medical insight to overcome hearing loss as a barrier to communication. It highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to make real progress and confirms our vision of creating technology that fundamentally changes people's lives to the better."
The award ceremony was held at the Culture and Congress Centre Aarau, Switzerland, with laudations by Prof. Marco Domenico Caversaccio, Director of the ENT Clinic at Bern University Hospital, and Prof. Konrad Schwager, former Director of the ENT Clinic Fulda. "The achievements of Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair have fundamentally shaped modern medicine," says Prof. Marco Domenico Caversaccio. "Their work is an example of bridging the gap between technology and clinical application – a central idea of skull base surgery."
Technology and Responsibility for a Life Full of Sound
MED-EL is one of the world's leading manufacturers of implantable hearing solutions. Founded in 1989 by the award-winning couple, the company hired its first employees in 1990. Since then, MED-EL has championed medical innovation, social inclusion and life-changing technology. The company’s vision is to provide people with hearing loss access to the hearing world through personalized hearing solutions, regardless of age, origin, or hearing biography.
This vision also reflects a deep-rooted commitment to combining individual hearing needs with technological precision and human care. Lifelong care is another core principle of MED-EL. Its backward-compatible systems ensure that users of MED-EL systems can benefit from future technological advancements. The company's implantable hearing solutions are designed to adapt to personal listening needs and to mimic natural hearing as closely as possible.
Innovation, individualization, inclusion and interdisciplinary cooperation are the main features of MED-EL’s corporate culture, values that are inextricably linked to the vision and work of Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair.
About MED-EL
MED-EL Medical Electronics, a leader in implantable hearing solutions, is driven by a mission to overcome hearing loss as a barrier to communication and quality of life. The Austrian-based, privately owned business was co-founded by industry pioneers Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair, whose ground-breaking research led to the development of the world’s first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant (CI), which was successfully implanted in 1977 and was the basis for what is known as the modern CI today. This laid the foundation for the successful growth of the company in 1990, when they hired their first employees. To date, MED-EL has more than 3,000 employees from around 90 nations and 30 locations worldwide.
The company offers the widest range of implantable and non-implantable solutions to treat all types of hearing loss, enabling people in 139 countries enjoy the gift of hearing with the help of a MED-EL device. MED-EL’s hearing solutions include cochlear and middle ear implant systems, a combined electric acoustic stimulation hearing implant system, auditory brainstem implants as well as surgical and non-surgical bone conduction devices. www.medel.com
CEO
Doz. DI Dr DDr med. h.c. Ingeborg Hochmair
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