The first awardee of the Lámfalussy Award was Ewald Nowotny, the Governor of the Austrian central bank and member of the Governing Council of the ECB, former professor and vice rector of the Vienna University of Economics, an internationally recognised expert of economics.
The Governor of the Austrian central bank clearly saw the accumulation of the problems that led to the global crisis and the imbalance of the EU's periphery, and as such with his presentations and thinking he tried to take an active part in the shaping of the paradigm shift that took place in the European economic policy and became one of the most influential figures of the European financial world. Ewald Nowotny serves as a model for the universal and responsible economist. He is an excellent practical expert and responsible decision-maker, who is able and willing to govern and influence the financial future of his own country and that of the European Union properly, and besides being a financial expert he is also the Governor of the central bank and economic policy-maker, who is not afraid of expressing his real views even if those are new and unconventional; and finally he is writing-reading and thinking scientist and a university professor with genuine commitment to the teaching of the future generation.