German Science Council recommends integration of FGAN into the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
“We are open to the Science Council’s suggestion, and will meet with FGAN and with the federal and state governments to examine the issue,” says Prof. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Commenting on the individual FGAN institutes, the Science Council established that these had not yet been sufficiently integrated into the scientific community. The Council therefore supports the idea of integrating FGAN into a civil research organization, as this would provide a much better basis for the FGAN institutes to increase their scientific and technological capacities and ensure that these are maintained in the long run. A decisive factor behind the Science Council’s recommendation is that the research and technology fields covered by the FGAN institutes are very closely related to those covered by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. To promote closer cooperation with other research institutions and universities, the institute directors are in future to be co-appointed by universities, while members of the scientific staff are to become more actively involved in university teaching. The main objective, however, is to systematically set up externally funded research programs. The FGAN research establishment is seated in Wachtberg near Bonn and consists of three institutes with a total of about 500 employees. “We believe that an integration into the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft would be a chance for us to channel our skills for greater use in civil areas as well,” says Dr. Ralf Dornhaus, Chairman of the Executive Board at FGAN, in response to the Council’s recommendation. The Research Institutes for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR and for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE are both located in Wachtberg, while the Institute for Optronics and Pattern Recognition FOM is in Ettlingen. With various research and development projects underway for the German Ministry of Defense, FGAN is making a significant contribution to securing and improving the efficiency of the Bundeswehr’s reconnaissance, command and control systems. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft already has five institutes in the defense and security sector working on both military and civil research projects. By incorporating the FGAN institutes, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft could form a strong alliance capable of participating significantly in both the German and European security research programs.
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