Economic success needs good training. Therefore, Max Auwärter attached great importance to apprenticeship training and founded, among others, the Neutechnikum Buchs as well as the Abendtechnikum Vaduz (University of Liechtenstein). In 1980, he endowed a prize named after him for young scientists. Auwärter himself received his first award at the age of 29, the gold medal for the development of the first hard, corrosion-resistant surface mirror. In 1964 he became an honorary citizen of Liechtenstein, and in 1983 honorary president of the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications. In 1996 he received the Prechtl Medal.
After studying experimental physics, Auwärter first worked in the laboratories of Robert Bosch GmbH and the W. C. Heraeus company, which developed quartz glass and low-scatter surface mirrors, among other things. In Liechtenstein, he founded Gerätebau-Anstalt Balzers in 1946, specializing in the industrial use of vacuum and the manufacture of thin films.