PwC award ceremony summer semester 2025
On October 29, 2025, the Department of Business Administration and Economics at Dortmund University of Technology was all about academic excellence. For the 34th time, the auditing and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) honored outstanding theses in the fields of controlling, accounting, auditing and taxation.
Theses that stood out for their academic excellence in the summer semester 2025 were honored. The award ceremony not only provided a worthy stage for the award-winning graduates, but also highlighted the close link between university research and professional practice. This year's prizes went to Simon Hamacher, Philipp Henkel, Florian Hünnies and Lars Springfeld.
In his Master's thesis "Systematization and derived assessment of tax allowances and exemption limits in income, inheritance and gift tax law", Simon Hamacher dealt with tax exemptions, which play a central role in tax law. Examples include the basic tax-free allowance to secure the minimum subsistence level and tax incentives for photovoltaic systems to promote the energy transition. Among other things, Mr. Hamacher analysed legislative motives, frequency of use and current reform plans for allowances and exemption limits.
In his bachelor thesis "Sustainability reporting of DAX 40 companies - an analysis of reporting practice", Philipp Henkel analyzes differences between sectors, changes resulting from the introduction of the CSRD and the integration of previous GRI indicators into the new reporting standards. The analysis is based on annual reports, scientific literature and data from the "Sustainability Reporting Navigator". In his work, Mr. Henkel shows how the CSRD contributes to the standardization and further development of sustainability reporting.
Florian Hünnies examines in his bachelor thesis "Comparison of RPA solutions for financial processes: Investigation of leading providers and analysis of application-related implementations", Florian Hünnies examines leading RPA systems in finance in terms of technical, functional and economic features such as user-friendliness, scalability and integration capability. The aim is to create a decision-making basis for the successful use of RPA and to derive practice-oriented recommendations. Through theoretical and empirical analyses, Mr. Hünnies shows how RPA contributes to the competitiveness and increased efficiency of financial companies.
Climate change, social justice and the sustainable use of resources are becoming increasingly important - also in the financial sector, where investors are paying more attention to sustainability criteria. The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR ) describes the responsibility of companies for the ecological and social impact of their actions, over and above legal requirements. However, there is scientific controversy as to whether CSR brings economic benefits. In his bachelor thesis "Influence of CSR on performance - a structured literature analysis", Lars Springfeld focuses on the European region and analyzes CSR and company performance under comparable framework conditions.
Every semester, the PwC award ceremony honors outstanding academic achievements that combine theory and practice in a special way. This year once again showed that the award-winning work not only enriches academic research, but also provides important impetus for business and society.
We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to the award winners!