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Socio-economic issues in the field of cultural heritage have been researched at Fraunhofer IMW for more than 10 years. Now the institute is expanding its research activities to Southeast Asia. The Leipzig research center has recently signed strategic cooperation agreements with key players in cultural heritage management in Southeast Asia, namely UNESCO's regional office for Asia-Pacific and the Siam Society Under Royal Patronage, the oldest organization for the protection of culture, history, art and natural sciences in Thailand.

In June 2020 the foundation stone for the world's first building made of carbon concrete, called CUBE, was laid in Dresden. Interested parties now have the opportunity to experience the building digitally. The CUBE serves as a demonstrator for various applications of carbon concrete. One of them is the integrated heating function of carbon concrete components. Their possible applications, business model approaches and market requirements are being evaluated by an interdisciplinary research team of the group Business Models: Engineering and Innovation in the project “C³InteF“. Fraunhofer IMW project leader Josephine Schöffel says: “By placing a heatable wall surface (C³InteF) in the world's first building made of carbon concrete, the multifunctionality of carbon concrete as a construction material can be illustrated“.

Researchers of the Professionalization of Knowledge Transfer Processes Unit are planning a creative workshop with different Leipzig based partners for the project SPARCS (Sustainable energy Positive & zero cARbon CommunitieS). The project partners want to work out a vision for the city of Leipzig in 2050 and together with representatives of relevant organizations come up with a normative target image in the form of texts and graphics. The focus of the so-called "City Vision 2050" is on urban governance, the digital city, urban transport, energy and housing.

What can be done today to ensure that the digital transformation contributes to a sustainable and efficient agriculture? To answer this question, the EXPRESS team has developed a visionary concept of the future, which was examined and validated from various perspectives as part of Digital Day 2020.

This year’s board of trustees meeting at the Fraunhofer IMW was driven by one central topic; namely, industrial transformation— an initiative distilled within the hashtag #WeKnowTransformation. On June 24, board members discussed the development of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s socio-economic institute and the contribution of the Fraunhofer IMW to the resilience of work, companies and regions in a world characterized by digital change and the current pandemic. As summarized within the key term “industrial transformation,” the Fraunhofer Institute in Leipzig conducts research on different facets of regional structural change in industry, economy, society and science and positions itself as a key institute on these topics. The digital meeting was led by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, founding director of The New Institute and former Secretary General of the Volkswagen Foundation, Dr. Wilhelm Krull.

Digital technologies worldwide are becoming more prevalent in the agriculture industry. This includes fruit and wine growing where numerous smart farming approaches offer new solutions to old problems. Used in the right place, these could, among other things, help to conserve resources and decisively improve the environmental balance in crop cultivation.

Israel and Germany have a long and close cooperation in the fields of research and innovation. Both countries complement each other in their research and innovation activities. On the occasion of an expert meeting of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF, a research team of Fraunhofer IMW presented interim results of the research project IntTransNet, which develops approaches for the further development of innovation policy approaches to promote international, applied research and development cooperation between science and industry.

The German government has from 2010 incorporated the future project “The CO2-neutral, energy-efficient and climate-adapted city“ in its high-tech strategy. Since then, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's “Morgenstadt Initiative“ has been developing solutions for the city of the future with over ten institutes. This has been coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO together with partners from industry and local authorities. In the publication “Sustainable Cities and Regions. A new strategy for the broad-based implementation of sustainable urban development in Germany“, the experts present their findings from ten years of systems research.

How can small and mid-sized companies use the current crisis as an opportunity to build future-oriented changes? Which role does digitalization play in this process? Professor Thorsten Posselt, Institute Director at Fraunhofer IMW, provides some answers to these questions in the interview with “ARBEIT UND LEBEN SACHSEN e. V.”

The promotion of bilateral cooperation between Germany and Israel and developing innovation strategies - this was the aim of two workshops organised by the Innovation Policy Group in April 2020.