Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organization for applied research in Europe.

Its research activities are conducted by 76 institutes and research units at locations throughout Germany.

Overview Institutes

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft employs a staff of 30,800, who work with an annual research budget totaling more than 3.0 billion euros.

Of this sum, more than 2.6 billion euros is generated through contract research.

More than 70 percent of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s contract research revenue is derived from contracts with industry and from publicly financed research projects.  

International collaborations with excellent research partners and innovative companies around the world ensure direct access to regions of the greatest importance to present and future scientific progress and economic development.

Contract research is the most important business field of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Its range of services focuses on the needs of industry as well as of government and society. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft develops solutions of direct practicable value to technical and organizational problems and contributes to the wide-scale implementation of new technologies.

Companies of all sizes in the industrial and service sectors benefit from contract research. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft represents an important source of innovative know-how for small and medium-sized companies that do not maintain their own R&D departments. For our customers in industry we develop and optimize technologies, processes and products right up to the production of prototypes and small batch series. We offer contract research and innovations in all application-relevant fields of expertise.

Studies / analyses

We advise our contractual partners, prior to research cooperation, through

• Custom-designed studies
• Feasibility and acceptance studies
• Market observations
• Trend analyses
• Life-cycle analyses
• Profitability calculations
• Authorization studies and clinical test patterns
• Examination and evaluation of chemicals
• Innovative screening methods

Advice / support

We support our customers in introducing new organizational forms and technologies into their business. This includes

• Testing in demonstration centers with the most up-to-date instrumentation
• Training of participating employees on site
• Services during and after the introduction of new processes and products
• Usability services, e.g. evaluation of software and web applications, online services, eCommerce or eCRM and hardware; usability engineering; consulting and planning of user orientated development processes

Inspection / certification

As part of Research and development services you can also access the services of accredited test laboratories and receive verification for adherence to obligatory standards.

• test services
• issuing of test seals