(Vienna, 19 July 2017) Rupert Lanzenberger, Head of the Neuroimaging Lab (NIL) at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital was awarded the Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Austrian Republic by the Austrian President. The official presentation was made by Rector Markus Müller.
The Decoration of Honour for Services to the Austrian Republic is a national award conferred by the Austrian Republic, of which there are 15 different levels. It is awarded by the Austrian President or in his name. Rupert Lanzenberger is receiving the Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Austrian Republic in recognition of his contribution to the international networking of Austrian research.
About Rupert Lanzenberger
Rupert Lanzenberger studied medicine and biology, completed his doctorate in 1998 at the University of Vienna, habilitated in 2010 in neurosciences and was appointed associate professor in 2012. The doctor has been working at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (Head: Siegfried Kasper) since 2004 and, except for brief research placements abroad, has spent these 13 years working with his team to establish an internationally recognised interdisciplinary field of research in psychiatric imaging focusing on Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Tomography (MRT), in close collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy and the Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering.
His international research work and publication activities are reflected in 163 peer-reviewed publications with co-authors from 28 countries on four different continents, including the USA (NIH, NIDA, Yale), Canada, UK, Australia, China, Japan, Israel, Germany and France (h-index 38, i10-index 95, >5000 citations, cumulative impact factor >720).
He is a member of the editorial boards of several leading journals in his field, such as NeuroImage and International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, and is co-organiser of international conferences such as the CINP and RSBC. Over the course of the last few years, members of his research group have won numerous national and international research prizes and he has himself won the renowned World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) research prize, which is awarded to a researcher every two years.
Lanzenberger is a member of several international bodies for evaluating research. For example, he works for the EU, as part of the European Research Council, and as an expert assessor for numerous research funding organisations such as DFG, MRC, NOW, ISF, Helmholtz Association and Wellcome Trust.
In addition to this, he has lectured at many major international conferences in 18 different countries (including the USA, China, Australia and Japan). Within Austria, he is also involved in working with various universities and in various research areas, e.g. as a spokesman for the "Interdisciplinary Translational Brain Research Cluster (ITHC) with high-field MR" of three universities, generously funded by the Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Economic Affairs (BMWFW), and as a member of the management team of the Medical Imaging Research Cluster and as Principal Investigator in the Medical Neurosciences Research Cluster of MedUni Vienna.