Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research

Applied research across a variety of fields

The Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research is a German research organization with 69 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science. With an annual research budget of about €2.1 billion, it is the biggest organisation for applied research and development services in Europe.  Its institutes cover a wide range of topics, including international management, physics, biomedical engineering, and algorithmic computing.  You can find a full list of Frauenhofer institutes here.

 

 

Student Story|Priyanka Chatterjee, TPP '17

Priyanka Chatterjee, TPP '17

Fraunhofer IMW focuses on socioeconomic research, seeking to bridge the gap between business, science, and policy. Fraunhofer specializes in knowledge society, value creation, and sustainable development. Fraunhofer further supports companies entering the market, particularly small and medium sized enterprises, by conducting market analysis and developing market strategies.

Working at Fraunhofer gave me a chance to dive deeper in the research work I began during my first year in the Technology & Policy Program at MIT. I was working at the office that specialized in international technology transfer, through which I helped consult for startup companies on their internationalization strategies. I also helped the center create an internal startup incubator for Fraunhofer overall.

Additionally, I was writing a comparative research paper on the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in Eastern vs. Western Germany. For that, I got to travel to several cities around both the East and West in order to visit R&D centers, startup incubators, and interview several leaders in government and business as well as budding entrepreneurs and research scientists pushing the envelope of German innovation.

Once a center for cultural activity in music, arts, and literature, Leipzig is starting to become poised to resurrect its history. Home to a large university, Leipzig is showing significant population growth, especially amongst young adults, and due to its budding cultural and street-art scene, is even starting to be dubbed the “New Berlin.”

 

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Student Story|Rebecca Luoh, BioE '17

Rebecca Luoh, BioE '17

I supported our four-person team in different capacities. My team focuses on healthcare projects. I accomplished several tasks. I co-researched on frugal innovations in healthcare with a colleague – compiling 50 examples of frugal innovations in healthcare, performing statistical analysis in SPSS, and writing a publication to summarize the results. I conducted an extensive literature review of user acceptance of telemedicine for a paper as well as a literature review and case studies of value-based healthcare and presented the findings. I also developed a poster about our team’s telemedicine project, ATMoSPHÄRE.

The working culture was more collaborative than I imagined. I thought I would be working alone for most of the internship, but I actually collaborated closely with many of my colleagues.

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