Since 2006, the economic consortium DER KLEINER KREIS in Oldenburg grants the Oldenburg economy award to persons, organizations and institutions for their notable promotion of the economic region Weser-Ems.

This year, the price - which is endowed with 5.000 Euro - was awared to Prof. Dr. Dr. Birger Kollmeier, professor at the department of medical physics and acoustics at the Oldenburg university, scientifc director of the Hörzentrum Oldenburg GmbH, the HörTech gGmbH, the Fraunhofer IDMT project group for hearing, speech and audio technology and coordinator of the cluster of excellence "Hearing4All".

The award ceremony took place on thursday, October 8th, at 7 pm at the Horst Janssen Museum in Oldenburg. The laudatio was given by Lutz Stratmann, director of the Demografieagentur für die niedersächsische Wirtschaft GmbH in Hannover and retired science minister of Lower Saxony.

The economic award arose from the Dr.-Hubert-Forch-Gedächtnispreis (Dr.-Hubert-Forch memorial award) which was founded in 1997 in memory of the longstanding chairman and sponsor of the local economy, Dr. Hubert Forch. The award is given for achievements which contributed greatly to the standing of the economic region Weser-Ems. Awardees can be single persons, but also organizations and institutions like universities and societies. Among the previous awardees are, i.e., the former Landtag president Horst Milde, the Übermorgenstadt Oldenburg - Stadt der Wissenschaft 2009, the director of the Institut für Ökonomische Bildung (IÖB), Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Hans Kaminski, and Jan-Dieter Bruns, the director of Bruns Pflanzen-Export GmbH & Co. KG, Bad Zwischenahn.