Dieter Frey Receives German Psychological Society Lifetime Achievement Award
The German Psychological Society will present its Award for Lifetime Scientific Achievement to social psychologist Professor Dr. Dieter Frey at the 54th DGPs Congress in Luxembourg.
The German Psychological Society (DGPs) is honoring Professor Dr. Dieter Frey of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2025 ARWU #42) for outstanding lifetime scientific achievement. The award recognizes a scholar who has shaped social psychology and research on ethics-oriented leadership and moral courage over several decades. The ceremony will take place on 7 September 2026 during the 54th DGPs Congress in Luxembourg.
Image Source: LMU Munich
A Career Bridging Social Psychology and Leadership
Dieter Frey studied social sciences in Mannheim and Hamburg and earned his doctorate and habilitation in Mannheim. He became professor of social and business psychology at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel in 1978, later serving as Theodor Heuss Professor at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. He moved to Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1993, where he held the Chair of Social Psychology until 2020, served as dean for many years, and headed the Bavarian Elite Academy.
Since 2007 he has directed the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Center for Leadership and People Management, a platform linking research on leadership, corporate culture, and human resource development with the needs of business and society. His research spans decision-making, creativity, innovation, motivation, moral courage, and ethics-oriented leadership. He has published roughly 600 scholarly works and supervised more than 100 doctoral dissertations; over 35 of his former doctoral students now hold professorships at universities worldwide.
Germany: A Leading Force in Psychology
Germany stands as a global powerhouse of psychological science. It was on its soil, along the storied banks of the Rhine, that the world's first formal psychology laboratory was founded.
In the 2025 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS), 44 German universities' psychology programs entered the global top 500, making Germany the country with the third-highest number of ranked institutions worldwide. 18 German universities placed their psychology programs within the global top 200.
The awarding body, the German Psychological Society (DGPs), represents around 6,000 psychologists active in research and higher education, underscoring the breadth of the country's psychological science community.
"The DGPs award means a great deal to me. Indeed, I am proud of it. At the same time, I know that achievements like these are always team efforts," Frey said. "This recognition motivates me to continue working on topics where research can help improve the world in small and large ways."
Frey has received numerous distinctions, including the German Psychology Prize in 1998, the Margrit Egner Foundation honor at the University of Zurich in 2016, and the Martin-Irle Prize from the German Psychological Society in 2016 for his support of early-career researchers. He has been a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1995, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has repeatedly ranked him among the 100 most influential economists in the German-speaking world.