Memberships

Fraunhofer ITWM

The network inside FhG

The ITWM is a member of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Group as well as guest in the Fraunhofer Materials and Components Group.
The good networking inside the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft also reflects the participation on numerous alliances:

Corporations:

ITWM is integrated in many internal Fraunhofer programs as well as in a network of national and international partnerships. At the local level, the closest partner is TU Kaiserslautern, of course the Mathematics department in particular, where many links exist in terms of subject matter as well as personnel.

The Felix Klein Center for Mathematics provides the institutional link between the teaching and research activities of the department of mathematics and the application oriented work of Fraunhofer ITWM – always with a focus on the promotion of young scholars. This does not start with first semester scholarship grants for the university studies, but rather with special, practical instructional units while still in in school.

The Innovation Center for Applied System Modeling is another element in the strategic relationship with TU Kaiserslautern. The Center, funded by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, provides a networking opportunity for the various TU faculties and the local Fraunhofer Institutes engaged in application-oriented research. It connects the capabilities of mathematics/informatics and engineering together in joint research and development projects. A similar aim is pursued at the Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling (CM)²; where the main application focus is to emphasize the point that the combination of mathematics with informatics creates an essential technology for engineers and natural science researchers.

Of course, ITWM is a member of the Science Alliance, an association of the university with renowned research institutes located in the technology base centered on the city of Kaiserslautern which offers a cross-disciplined network to students, scientists, and joint venture partners from business, government, and manufacturing.

Under the joint leadership of the two institutes ITWM and IESE, the Fraunhofer Innovation Cluster – Digital Engineering for Commercial Vehicles performs state of the art research in the area of commercial vehicles. Participating partners include, e.g., Daimler AG, John Deere, Robert Bosch GmbH, Schmitz Cargobull, Volvo Construction Equipment Europe GmbH.

ITWM also belongs to the Top Cluster Software Innovations for the Digital Enterprise and participates in the Fraunhofer System Research for Electromobility FSEM, a joint research project.

 

Further information

Schweden: »Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics« (FCC) in Göteborg

Founded one year ago, the Fraunhofer Chalmers Research Center for Industrial Mathematics in Göteborg has recently been officially inaugurated. This affiliate Swedish institute is an initiative of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM and the Chalmers-Universität in Göteborg . With only ten employees, the Göteberg-based Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics (FCC) is still a relatively small institute. But plans are already in place to double the number of staff over the coming two years. This growth will be made possible through successful partnerships with several well-known Swedish industrial firms such as ABB, Ericsson and Volvo. The FCC continues to receive strong support in equal measure from both the Chalmers University and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

The FCC was born out of the Institute for Tillämpad Matematik (ITM) - the Institute for Applied Mathematics, belonging to the mathematics department of Chalmers University in Göteborg. The former head of the ITM, Uno Nävert, will now also lead the FCC into the future. This continuity in personnel maintains the already well-established contacts in the industrial sector.

Through their close cooperation, both participants will enjoy the advantage of easier access to the market of the partner country. ITWM Director, Professor Dieter Prätzel-Wolters, points out that the partners hardly compete, since each institute clearly has its own core research capabilities: Our strength lies in the fields of virtual design of materials and products, process simulation, financial mathematics and diagnosis systems. The FCC, however, has aligned its focus on biological statistics, finite element method analysis, quality control of communications networks, and the analysis of sensor and measuring systems. In order to ensure that existing knowledge can be shared and put to use, the partners have agreed to an active exchange of scientists. In practice, this exchange is already under way. Cooperation has already taken place on several projects within the ITWM departments of Adaptive Systems and Financial Mathematics. One ITWM staff member has been performing research in Sweden since the founding of FCC one year ago.

Helmut Neunzert, who several years ago launched the initiative to link work in applied mathematics at universities, emphasizes: While European research policies are dominated by the ‘Top-Down-Europe’ idea in large integrated projects, the FCC has been established to implement a ‘Bottom-Up-Europe’ approach. On-site cooperative efforts and the exchange of scientists and know-how will generate a far-reaching and solid European scientific research network.

 

Further information

Großbritannien: Finanz-Allianz mit Cambridge

In February 2008, ITWM bridged the Channel to Great Britain and together with the world renowned University of Cambridge established Cambridge-Kaiserslautern Finance Alliance. The know-how residing in both institutes in the field of financial mathematics is primarily used to test the feasibility of previously developed models and to bring existing software products to market.
We have also been able to integrate the Cambridge-based company Cambridge Systems Associates Limited. Besides, several scientists of the Fraunhofer ITWM have worked in Cambridge for longer periods in order to cooperate in the research. A completely new research project has been started which is based on the explicit modeling of economic factors as the real pricedetermining elements. We expect information about the predictability of extreme events or breaks in economic trend.
The most spectacular event in England was the launch of the Alliance in the Brewers Hall in London on July 21, 2008. Researchers from Cambridge and Kaiserslautern presented the cooperation to the numerous participants from practice.