Siemens (www.siemens.com) has honoured 14 researchers as its Inventors of the Year 2017.

Together, they are responsible for some 1,300 inventions and 920 patents; nine of them are in Germany, two are in Austria, one is in Denmark, and two are in the USA.

Their inventions range from a solution for the digital power grids of tomorrow to technologies that substantially improve medical diagnostics — and to current collectors that enable all-electric drive for conventional trucks.

Roland Busch, chief technology officer of Siemens AG, said: “Innovations don’t simply arise out of great ideas; they also require great skill in implementation.

All 14 of these inventors are role models in this respect. They pursued their ideas with passion and are successful on the market with their technologies.”

Every year since 1995, Siemens has been presenting this award to its own researchers and developers whose inventions have made major contributions to the company’s strong performance.

Since 2016, the award has also been presented to researchers from outside the company.

In 2017, Siemens filed around 3,650 patents world-wide — an increase of 150 over the previous year.

World-wide, Siemens holds about 63,000 patents. In 2017, Siemens employees submitted details of about 7,450 inventions; on a basis of 220 work-days during the year, this figure corresponds to about 34 inventions per day.