2026 Honda Prize honours Clark and Hochmair
Professor Graeme M. Clark AC and Dr. Ingeborg Hochmair have been named joint recipients of the 2026 Honda Prize for advancing the multichannel cochlear implant.
The Honda Foundation chose the pair for their work in research, development, clinical application and worldwide adoption of the device. Clark is an Australian medical doctor and neuroscientist and laureate professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne. Hochmair is an Austrian electrical engineer, co-founder and CEO of MED-EL.
The Honda Foundation is a public interest incorporated foundation established by Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., and his younger brother Benjiro. It created the Honda Prize in 1980 to recognise research that contributes to what it calls “the creation of a truly humane civilization”.
The foundation says the award was Japan’s first international prize in science and technology to recognise ideas that open the way for next-generation technologies and their wider use. The 47th Honda Prize ceremony will take place at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on Monday, 16 November 2026.
At that event, Clark and Hochmair will receive medals, certificates and a total cash prize of 10 million yen. The foundation ties the prize to its idea of ecotechnology, which it defines as a human-friendly approach to science and technology that seeks to harmonise natural and human environments and address social issues.
A cochlear implant is a medical device for people with severe hearing loss who still have difficulty understanding speech even with hearing aids. Hearing aids amplify sound, while cochlear implants convert sound into electrical signals and stimulate the auditory nerve through electrodes inserted in the cochlea.
Multichannel cochlear implants divide sound into frequency bands and use multiple electrodes to send more sound information to the auditory nerve. According to the foundation, that improved on earlier implants that only let users perceive the presence and rhythm of sound.
1970s work led to clinical use
In the 1970s, both researchers worked independently to improve conventional cochlear implants. Their work helped turn the technology into systems designed to improve speech understanding.
Clark began cochlear implant research in 1967 in electrophysiology and later led a team at the University of Melbourne. In 1978, that team carried out multichannel cochlear implant surgery and brought the technology into clinical use.
Hochmair started cochlear implant research in 1975 at the Technical University in Vienna. Then, in 1977, she, Dr. Erwin Hochmair and Professor Kurt Burian achieved implantation of the multichannel cochlear implant.
