The Marcus Wallenberg Foundation proudly announces that the 2010 Marcus Wallenberg Prize is awarded to Professor Hans Joachim Blass, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, for his path breaking work regarding innovative and reliable structural timber connections, which have high load transfer capacity and can be efficiently applied at construction sites and within industrial processes.Professor Blass has by extensive research provided fundamental engineering knowledge on timber connections and converted this knowledge to usable format for practicing engineers based on principles of mechanics. He has also developed methods for designing connectors and played an important role in the international standardization of these methods.The Prize will be presented by His Majesty, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, at a ceremony in Stockholm on 27 September. The following day a symposium around the subject of the Prize-winning research and its impact on the forest and forest products industries will be arranged.