INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA — MED-EL founders Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair have been named Laureates of the 2026 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize), an international award recognizing engineering innovations with global impact. The 2026 prize highlights the design and development of modern neural interfaces—technologies intended to restore lost human functions—and recognizes engineers whose work has helped establish and advance these approaches.
The Hochmairs were recognized alongside cochlear implant pioneers Graeme Clark and Blake Wilson for contributions to cochlear implant technology, which converts sound into electrical signals and delivers them to the auditory nerve. Over the past several decades, cochlear implants have become a widely used intervention for individuals with severe to profound hearing loss.
Early cochlear implant research and a milestone in 1977
According to MED-EL, Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair began cochlear implant research in 1975 at the Technical University of Vienna. Their work led to the development of what the company describes as the world’s first microelectronic cochlear implant in 1977. MED-EL said this early research supported advances in signal processing, implant miniaturization, and long-term biocompatibility—areas that underpin performance and reliability in contemporary cochlear implant systems.
MED-EL also linked the Hochmairs’ research program to the company’s founding and long-term focus on implantable hearing solutions. The company cited ongoing work in neural interface engineering, including recent developments such as TICI.
London, UK, 03 February 2026. Ingeborg Hochmair (L) and Erwin Hochmair. The 2026 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Laureates for pioneering achievements in neuroengineering to restore human function are Grégoire Courtine, Jocelyne Bloch, Alim Louis Benabid, Pierre Pollak, John Donoghue, Graeme Clark, Ingeborg Hochmair and Erwin Hochmair and Blake Wilson. Their work enables technology to interact directly with the brain and nervous system to restore abilities such as hearing, movement, and communication for people affected by sensory loss, paralysis, and neurological disease. TKTK during the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering announcement event. Photographer: Jason Alden/QEPrize
Framing neural interfaces as engineering that restores function
The QEPrize announcement places cochlear implants within a broader category of neural interfaces—technologies designed to interact with the nervous system to restore or improve function. In addition to cochlear implants, the 2026 Laureates collectively reflect progress in areas such as brain-computer interfaces, deep brain stimulation, and electronic spinal stimulation.
Together with Inge and Erwin Hochmair, the 2026 QEPrize has been awarded to Graeme Clark, Blake Wilson, John Donoghue, Alim Louis Benabid, Pierre Pollak, Jocelyne Bloch and Grégoire Courtine for the design and development of modern neural interfaces that restore human function.
The Laureates will share the £500,000 prize.
Founder statements
Ingeborg Hochmair, Co-founder and CEO of MED-EL, emphasized the company’s framing of engineering as a means to improve quality of life:
“This honor recognizes not only a technological achievement, but a belief we have held from the very beginning – that engineering, guided by compassion and scientific integrity, can fundamentally change lives,” says Ingeborg Hochmair, Co-founder and CEO of MED-EL. “Cochlear implants were once considered impossible by many. Today, they demonstrate what can be achieved when engineers, clinicians, and users work together with a shared purpose.”
Erwin Hochmair, Co-founder of MED-EL, highlighted long-term design goals and the importance of sustained research:
“From the earliest experiments, our goal was to create a neural interface that could work in harmony with the human auditory system over a lifetime. This recognition by the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering affirms the importance of long-term thinking, scientific persistence, and engineering solutions that truly serve people.”
Announcement in London
MED-EL said the 2026 Laureates were formally announced by Lord Vallance, Chair of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation, at the Science Museum in London.
About the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
Diverse, multifaceted, and continually evolving, engineering creates the solutions to global challenges and improves billions of lives. Engineers have enabled us to work together across the planet, explore the smallest cells and the most distant stars, and navigate our way through the world.
Awarded annually, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize) champions bold, groundbreaking engineering innovation which is of global benefit to humanity. The prize celebrates engineering’s visionaries, inspiring young minds to consider engineering as a career choice and to help to solve the challenges of the future.
The prize also encourages engineers to help extend the boundaries of what is possible across all disciplines and applications.
The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is open to:
- Up to ten living individuals;
- Of any nationality;
- Who are personally responsible for a groundbreaking innovation in engineering which has been of global benefit to humanity. Self-nomination is not permitted.
The judges will use these criteria to select the winner, or winners, of the QEPrize:
- What is it that they have done that is a ground-breaking innovation in engineering?
- In what way has this innovation been of global benefit to humanity?
Are there any other individuals who might claim to have had a pivotal role in this development?
To find out more about this year’s winning innovation, visit www.qeprize.org/winners
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 3,100 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 140 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, as well as surgical and non-surgical bone conduction devices. www.medel.com
Source: MED-EL
