News

Dr. Marija Radic, division and unit head at Fraunhofer IMW, and Dr. Agnes Vosen, research fellow in the Price and Service Management unit, have conducted research on the commercial use of assistance robots over the past three years. They recently presented their results at the closing and networking event of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's (BMBF) funding initiative "Robots for Assistance Functions".

The collaborative project Leibniz ScienceCampus "Eastern Europe - Global Area" investigates the positioning of Eastern Europe in global processes and conflicts.

How can a country successfully transform itself from a mining-driven economy to a knowledge economy successfully? This question, among others were discussed by the Institute Director Prof. Dr. Thorsten Posselt and Ambassador Masire-Mwamba of the Republic of Botswana during their visit to Fraunhofer IMW on September 25, 2020.

For more than 10 years, the Fraunhofer IMW has been conducting research on socio-economic issues in the field of cultural heritage. Recently, the institute expanded its research activities to Southeast Asia. As part of the URGENT 2.0 project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), in which Fraunhofer IMW as well as Fraunhofer IEE and the School of Public Policy at Chiang Mai University are involved, the project team of the Innovation Acceptance Unit of Fraunhofer IMW published a report on cultural heritage management in Thailand.

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.