Dr. Juliane Welz

Areas of Expertise

• Futurology
• Social and environmental sciences technology research
• Knowledge transfer and participation processes
• Transdisciplinary knowledge integration
• Quantitive and qualitive methods for social research

Professional Development

Dr. Juliane Welz is head of the »Futures and Innovation Unit« at Fraunhofer IMW. She studied geography at Leipzig University and completed her doctorate in the field of human geography at the University of Hamburg (2012). From 2007 to 2016, she worked as a research fellow at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) in the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, where she dealt with social and environmental issues in an international context, urban transformations in megacities in Latin America, and urban vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. Dr. Welz has many years of experience working in inter-and transdiciplinary research cooperation. Since July 2017 she has been working in the Futures and Innovation Unit (until 5/2023: Professionalizing Knowledge Transfer Processes Unit) at Fraunhofer IMW. Her current scope of activities focuses on the development of future knowledge in interdisciplinary technology research at the intersection of society and environment, and combines this research with methodological foresight tools as well as knowledge and technology transfer. Relevant technological fields include additive-generative manufacturing, machine learning, and space travel. Since November 2024 Dr. Welz is also Deputy Head of the »Knowledge and Technology Transfer« Division of Fraunhofer IMW. In addition, together with Dr. Anna Pohle and Dr. Christine Richter, she chairs the Fraunhofer IMW Science Colloquium.

Current Projects

• Foresight Fraunhofer
• EXPRESS
• REGINA – Regional Value Chains for Organic Agricultural Products

Completed Projects

• AGENT-3D - Printing New Worlds 
• Future Prospects for Space Travel 2040
• PROOF - Acceptance of decentralized urban power generation systems in Vietnam
• Machine Learning - Competences, Applications and Research Needs