In addition to medical care, two key factors that also affect people’s health are nutrition and the environment. Current Fraunhofer research in the area of environmental and life sciences derives its key goals from these three factors.
The objective of safety researchers is to provide people and the environment with the best possible protection from threats. They adopt a long-term approach in order to gain control of all the different phases that occur in a disaster, focusing on early detection, prevention, direct protection and quickly overcoming the consequences of a disastrous event.
The mobility of goods and passengers has become an indispensable factor for industry and society, and continually poses new challenges for the scientific community: from vehicle development to traffic management, from new safety requirements to efficient transport logistics. Fraunhofer researchers are working on ways to make mobility safer, more efficient and more economical.
A scarcity of raw materials, a shortage of qualified workers, competitive pressure – these are only a few of the challenges manufacturers face. Researchers are working on energy- and resource-efficient processes for tomorrow’s manufacturing.
Information and communication technology is an overlapping area that covers almost all other research fields and sectors, from medicine and the media industry through to the manufacturing sector. Digital technologies open up many new ways to communicate. Personalized, interactive and mobile learning methods help prepare us for the work environment of the future.
If we want heated homes, hot water for showers, and electricity to power our ovens, appliances and computers, we need energy. Until now it’s been mainly oil, coal and gas that have driven the economy and supplied our home comforts. The problem is that, slowly but surely, these finite resources are running out. It is imperative that we use raw materials more efficiently – and that includes using energy more efficiently, finding reliable ways to store it and redoubling efforts to tap renewables.
Fraunhofer Representative Office Japan