Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

What they do

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is Europe's best-known organisation for applied research. It runs a network of institutes across Germany, each specialising in a field such as microelectronics, solar energy, production technology, software or materials. Unlike a university, Fraunhofer works largely on contract: companies and public bodies commission research and development, and the institutes turn scientific knowledge into technology that can be licensed, manufactured or deployed.

Why it matters

The clearest proof of Fraunhofer's impact is in most people's pockets. The mp3 audio format was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in Erlangen, in a team in which Karlheinz Brandenburg played a leading role. Compressing music into small files without obvious loss of quality changed how the world listened to and distributed music, and licensing it gave Fraunhofer a lasting revenue stream. Its work on AAC and other audio codecs continues in streaming services and broadcast today, and Fraunhofer HHI in Berlin was a significant contributor to the H.264 video standard.

The broader model matters as much as any single invention. Fraunhofer gives Germany's Mittelstand, which rarely has large research departments, access to advanced research, and it has spun out many companies. Its institutes have also set records in areas such as solar cell efficiency at Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg.

Products to know

• mp3: the audio compression format developed at Fraunhofer IIS.
• AAC: the successor audio codec family, with Fraunhofer's FDK AAC library in wide use.
• H.264/AVC: the video standard to which Fraunhofer HHI made a major contribution.

The German angle

Fraunhofer was founded in Munich on 26 March 1949 by representatives of industry, academia and the governments of Bavaria, Hesse and Württemberg, and it is named after Joseph von Fraunhofer, the Munich optician and physicist. It is a cornerstone of the German research system alongside the Max Planck, Helmholtz and Leibniz organisations, with a distinct remit: bridging the gap between laboratory and factory. Its institutes are spread across the country, from Erlangen and Freiburg to Dresden and Berlin, often anchoring regional technology clusters, and many companies on this site have links to them.