Professor D. Roger J. Owen FLSW was presented with the 2016 Friendship Award, the People’s Republic of China’s highest award for foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country’s economic and social progress. Professor Owen is a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, as well as a current member of Council. He is a Research Professor in the Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering at Swansea University.

Professor Owen has been honoured for his involvement with China in R&D activities for over 30 years, particularly in the area of the finite element method which is the most powerful computational procedure to emerge for the solution of a wide range of engineering and scientific problems over the last fifty years. The methodology has revolutionised the way engineering structures and manufacturing processes are designed and has also been an invaluable tool for fundamental scientific research.