The city council has been awarding the "Ring of Honor of the City of Bochum" for more than 50 years. It honors personalities who have shown outstanding commitment and service to the city. In addition to their ongoing commitment, their attitude, values and benevolent critical engagement with society in their respective fields also count.
Since yesterday evening, Christof Paar has also been one of the Ring of Honor recipients. During a ceremony in the Kammerspiele of the Bochum Schauspielhaus, he was presented with the Ring of Honor by Lord Mayor Thomas Eiskirch. He was also allowed to sign the city's golden book, along with 14 other distinguished personalities.
The city council justified the award with Christof Paar's many services to one of the most important research areas in Bochum – IT security –
- as founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy,
- through his significant involvement in the establishment of the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security as well as
- his role as one of the spokespersons of the Cluster of Excellence CASA.
Not only the more than 20 years of expertise in the field of computer systems security and the interdisciplinary nature of his research were highlighted, but also the commitment to young talent in the field of founding start-ups in IT security.
Christof Paar is very pleased about the award and proud that he – with his colleagues from HGI, CASA and MPI-SP – was able to turn Bochum into one of the leading centers for IT security in Europe.
General note: In case of using gender-assigning attributes we include all those who consider themselves in this gender regardless of their own biological sex.