In 2020 Hedvig Hoenig, née Schmidt, established the charitable Rainer Hoenig Foundation in memory of her husband, who died in 2018 due to bile duct carcinoma. She endowed the new foundation without legal capacity with a capital of half a million euros, assigned to the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg as the managing trustee.

By establishing their foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Hoenig wanted to support research into bile duct cancer, which to this day is incurable, and to contribute to increasing the chances of those suffering from it, through improved early detection and new therapies. Bile duct carcinoma has been increasing rapidly in recent years in connection with non-viral hepatitis caused by fatty liver, a chronic liver disease. Presently, most patients will die of the disease within five years after being diagnosed. The available therapies can only buy time for the patients, but not cure the disease.

The purpose of the Rainer Hoenig Foundation is the promotion of science and research in the field of bile duct cancer (cholangiocellular carcinoma). Over the next few years, the foundation will finance a research project at the German Cancer Research Center in the division of  "Chronic Inflammation and Cancer". Among other things, the funded research project will investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms of tumor genesis, metastasis and relapse, as well as new immune therapeutic approaches. "My late husband and I unfortunately had to experience during his illness that cancer medicine had reached its limits and could not help him, despite the best efforts of the doctors treating him. That's why we decided to establish a foundation to benefit cancer research, to gain new insights that will further develop and improve treatment options for bile duct cancer ," Hedvig Hoenig explains.