Who will you recommend for the Wim van der Hoek Award 2025?

The Wim van der Hoek Award is an annual prize awarded to the student with the best graduation project in the field of mechanical engineering. In 2025 the prize will be awarded for the 19th time.

We are requesting technical universities and colleges in the Netherlands and Flanders to submit their students’ graduation reports before 6 September. An expert jury assesses the reports and selects the nominees from them; In the evening (September 22, 29 and October 6) these nominees give a presentation to the jury via Teams, who then chooses a winner based on presentation and report. The winner will be announced on November 14 at the Precision Fair.

The winner will receive 1000 euros, an original trophy and a framed certificate. The other nominees will receive a certificate. All nominees may submit an abstract for the DSPE Conference 2027 and if awarded the opportunity to give a lecture or display a poster (with or without demonstration), participate in the DSPE Conference 2027 free of charge (date September 22 and 23 2027).

Background
The prize is intended to bring greater attention to the area of design in mechanical engineering. The name of the prize refers to Emeritus Professor Wim van der Hoek, who from 1962 to
1985 laid the foundations for the unique Dutch method of design in mechanical engineering at
TU Eindhoven.

Criteria
Graduation reports from the academic year 2024/2025 may be submitted if the graduation date is between 1 Augustus 2024 and 31 July 2025. When assessing the graduation reports, the quality of
the design, substantiation and innovativeness of the chosen solutions are the criteria, as well as the
possibility to serve as an example in the book Construction Principles. Candidates must be nominated
by the graduation supervisor, graduation teacher or lecturer/professor.