Professor Apel is one of 49 computer scientists from all over the world to have received this honour in 2018. With the award, ACM recognises Professor Apel's excellent scientific contributions to computer science, particularly in software engineering.
ACM's President, Cherri M. Pancake said in her laudatory speech that all award-winning members had demonstrated their commitment to the community through their long-standing ACM memberships and that these leading experts embody ACM's mission to advance computer science as a science and a profession.
At the University of Passau, Professor Apel's research concerns methods for the development of reliable and efficient software systems. He has previously won a number of awards for his work, including the Hugo-Junkers Prize for Research and Innovation and prizes from the Ernst Denert Foundation and the Karin Witte Foundation. Since 2013, Sven Apel has held a Heisenberg Professorship with a focus on software product lines, which has been financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG).