The Fraunhofer Society is the leading organisation of applied research in Germany. It operates some 80 research units, including 59 Fraunhofer Institutes, at over 40 different locations in Germany. The majority of the roughly 17,000 staff are qualified scientists and engineers, who work with an annual research budget of over 1,6 billion euros. Of this sum, more than 1,3 billion is generated through contract research. Roughly two thirds of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s contract research revenue is derived from contracts with industry and from publicly financed research projects.

The remaining one third is contributed by the German federal and Länder governments, partly as a means of enabling the institutes to pursue more fundamental research in areas that are likely to become relevant to industry and society in five or ten years’ time.