AMA Innovation Award 2025

The AMA Association for Sensor and Measurement Technology has honored two outstanding development teams with the AMA Innovation Award 2025. This year's winners are the development teams at NanoStruct GmbH in Würzburg, a young company with university ties, and the development team at the established Endress+Hauser Flow in Switzerland. Both teams impressed the independent jury of experts from science and industry in equal measure. The prize money of €10,000 will be split between the two winners.

The award ceremony took place on May 6, 2025, at the opening of the SENSOR+TEST trade fair in Nuremberg. This year marked the 25th anniversary of the AMA Innovation Award, an anniversary that impressively reflects the breadth and depth of technological innovations in sensor and measurement technology.

The award-winning projects at a glance:

Three-minute bacteria test with SERS technology

Development team: Dr. Henriette Maaß and Enno Schatz, NanoStruct GmbH, Würzburg

The start-up NanoStruct GmbH, which emerged from the University of Würzburg, developed an innovative rapid test for identifying pathogenic bacteria in food. The technology is based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and enables detection within minutes using nanostructured sensors.

The challenge lay in the reproducible production of the nanostructures, which has now been successfully achieved. The technology is about to enter the market – initially in the field of food analysis, with further applications in other safety-critical areas in the future. True to the motto “Faster analysis for a safer life,” the process contributes to greater safety and efficiency in quality control.

Clamp-on ultrasonic sensors for high-temperature flow measurements

Development team: Beat Kissling, Quirin Müller, Roberto Vitali, Andreas Berger, Endress+Hauser Flow, Reinach (Switzerland)

The development team at Endress+Hauser Flow has achieved a technological breakthrough that enables contactless flow measurements at temperatures of up to 550 °C for the first time. The innovative clamp-on ultrasonic sensor can also be used to measure high-temperature liquids such as molten salts with precision, making a significant contribution to industrial applications in the context of the energy transition. The sensors open up new applications, for example in thermal energy storage or in high-temperature processes where no reliable measurement technology was previously available.

“I would like to congratulate both winning teams. With this year's double award, we are recognizing two completely different but equally forward-looking developments,” explains Professor Dr. Andreas Schütze, Chairman of the Jury. ”They show how innovative strength arises in both start-ups and established companies and how important this diversity is for technological progress.”