The 2026 Sarton Medal and the 2026/27 Sarton Chair for the History of Science at Ghent University awarded to Holger Fleischer
Ghent University has awarded Institute Director Holger Fleischer the Sarton Medal 2026 and appointed him to the Sarton Chair for the History of Science for the 2026/27 academic year. The dual honours are in acknowledgement of his legal-historical research on the evolution of company law.
Fleischer’s work in the field ranges broadly, including analysis of early partnership agreements and the wills of prominent merchant families (such as the Medici and the Fuggers), research on the historical development of partnership and corporate law, and his current project examining 300 years of corporate scandals and the ensuing legal repercussions. Subsequent to the award ceremony held on 22 October 2026 in Ghent, Fleischer delivered his inaugural lecture titled ‘From Outrage to Regulation: 300 Years of Corporate Scandals and their Legal Aftermath’. Two further guest lectures at Ghent University will follow in November 2026.
The Sarton Medal and the Sarton Chair for the History of Science honour the Belgian-American historian of science George Sarton (1884–1956), one of the founders of the modern academic discipline studying the history of science and a former student at Ghent University. On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the university established in 1984 the Sarton Chair. Since that time, an inter-faculty committee annually honours as Sarton Medallists scholars who have rendered outstanding service through their contributions to the history of their respective disciplines. One of these medal recipients is then selected as the Sarton Chair holder, and this individual opens the academic lecture series with a ceremonial lecture. The papers presented by the Sarton Medallists and the Sarton Chair holder are later published in Sartoniana, a journal on the history of science.
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Holger Fleischer, LL.M. (Michigan), Dipl.-Kfm., studied law and economics in Cologne and at the University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor. Research stays took him to Brussels, Milan, Paris, and London. Following completion of his doctorate and habilitation at the University of Cologne, he served as full professor at the University of Göttingen from 2000 to 2003, where he held the Chair of Civil, Commercial and Business Law, and Comparative Law. From 2003 to 2009, he was a full professor at the University of Bonn, initially as Director of the Institute for Tax Law and, from 2005, as Director of the Institute for Commercial and Economic Law. In 2008, he was awarded the Leibniz Prize by the German Research Foundation. In 2009, he was appointed as a Director at the Institute. He is the editor and author of numerous handbooks and commentaries on commercial law, company law, and capital markets law; he has, in addition, co-edited a variety of specialist journals.
Image: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law / Johanna Detering