Professor Urs Meier is currently Deputy Director General of the United Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA) with 820 co-workers in Dubendorf-Zurich, Switzerland. He is also professor of the Department of Materials Science of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Urs Meier has accomplished much in the application of advanced composites in civil engineering during the past 25 years and has received worldwide recognition for his pioneering work. Especially noteworthy is the post-strengthening of civil structures with carbon fibre reinforced polymer strips, which has been successfully implemented at a growing rate worldwide, and the application of CFRP stay- and post-tensioning cables. He has been a prolific researcher and engineer with more than 250 publications to his credit. He has received numerous international best paper and technical innovation awards for excellence for his research and development contributions. He has also developed a number of worldwide recognized patents within the field. Other tributes to Urs Meier include the establishment by the ISIS Canada Research Network (Intelligent Sensing for Innovative Structures-an organization of the Canadian government) of a specially dedicated Urs Meier Scholarship and his being acclaimed Doctor of Engineering, honoris causa, by the Royal Military College of Canada in 2005. Recently, a special issue of the Journal of Composites for Construction- ASCE was presented to honour Professor Urs Meier for his remarkable achievements and exemplary dedication to this field.