On the occasion of the 20th European Conference on Fracture in Trondheim, ESIS President Prof. Leslie Banks-Sills and ECF20 Chairman Prof. Zhiliang Zhang conferred the ESIS Awards.

The Wöhler Medal was awarded to Prof. Reinhard Pippan for his seminal contributions to the effect of severe plastic deformation on fatigue. The Griffith Medal was awarded to Prof. Gordon Williams for his seminal contributions to the application of fracture mechanics to polymers following the Griffith approach in terms of energy. In addition to the two ESIS medals, Dr. Wolfgang Dietzel was given the Award of Merit for his outstanding contributions to stress corrosion cracking, and his service to ESIS by establishing TC10 on Environmentally Assisted Cracking, and Prof. John W. Hutchinson was awarded the Honorary Membership to ESIS for his leadership in the area of fracture mechanics, his many breakthroughs that have led to our understanding of fracture and his work in plasticity and fracture. Prof. Bamber R. K. Blackman, Prof. James Marrow, Prof. Jesús Toribio and Prof. Huang Yuan were awarded the ESIS fellowship for their outstanding contributions to the art, science, teaching or practice of fracture mechanics and their service to the Society. In order to encourage the participation of young scientists and acknowledge their contributions, we also established a special ESIS-Elsevier Young Scientist competition session at ECF20. Four finalists entered the session and competed for the first and the second prize award. The ESIS-Elsevier Young Scientist Award First Prize was awarded to Dr. Luis Saucedo Mora for the paper entitled: 3D cellular automata finite element modeling of quasi-brittle fracture with meshfree damage propagation. The ESIS Elsevier Young Scientist Award Second Prize was awarded to: Dr. David Grégoire for the paper entitled: Size and boundary effects during failure in quasi-brittle materials: experimental and numerical investigations.

Prof. Gordon Williams receiving his Griffith Medal and Prof. Reinhard Pippan receiving his Wöhler Medal. The Chairman of ECF20 and the ESIS awards committee Prof. Zhiliang Zhang and President of ESIS Prof. Leslie Banks-Sills standing aside.

Dr. Wolfgang Dietzel receiving the Award of Merit and Prof. John W. Hutchinson receiving the Honorary Membership to ESIS.

Prof. Bamber R. K. Blackman, Prof. James Marrow, Prof. Jesús Toribio and Prof. Huang Yuan receiving their ESIS fellowship certificates.

Dr. Luis Saucedo Mora receiving his ESIS-Elsevier Young Scientist Award First Prize award and a cheque for 1000 Euro from Elsevier, and Dr. David Grégoire receiving The ESIS Elsevier Young Scientist Award Second Prize award and a cheque for 500 Euro.  Standing aside are Chairman of ECF20 and the ESIS awards committee Prof. Zhiliang Zhang, Elsevier representative Dr. Jing Zhang and President of ESIS Prof. Leslie Banks-Sills.