About us

Fraunhofer UMSICHT is actively involved in shaping energy and raw materials management, focusing its research on four main areas: Circular Economy, Carbon Management, Green Hydrogen and Local Energy Systems. 

As a pioneer for technical innovations, we promote sustainable management, environmentally friendly technologies and innovative behavior in order to improve people's quality of life and promote the innovative capacity of the domestic economy.

We develop solutions that make a decisive contribution to a resource-conserving society and economy. Our focus is on achieving a balance between economically successful, socially just and environmentally compatible developments.

Facts and figures

Fraunhofer UMSICHT has a site in Oberhausen, an institute branch in Sulzbach-Rosenberg and a plastics technology center in Willich. The institute was founded in June 1990 as a non-profit technical-scientific institution with the support of the city of Oberhausen and local industries. The institute complex at the Oberhausen site comprises five buildings with office space, a data center, a library and a representative event room. Workshops, technical shops (3100 m²) and laboratories (1400 m²) form the technical infrastructure.

Since July 1, 2012, the institute branch in the Nuremberg metropolitan region, based in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, has been part of Fraunhofer UMSICHT. In 2024, the workforce at both sites comprised 596 employees – mostly with training in the natural sciences and engineering. Of these, 52 percent are scientific staff, 17 percent are administrative staff, 4 percent are training staff and 28 percent are students, pupils and interns.

In 2024, the institute generated a turnover of € 73.3 million. This includes € 18.5 million in industrial returns, € 36.2 million in public returns (incl. EU), € 3.6 million in other income, € 8.3 million in basic funding and € 6.8 million in funding from internal programs.

Institute of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

As an institute within the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, we are globally networked and promote international cooperation. In order to use synergies in technology development and expand scientific value adding, we work with partners worldwide. Strategic collaborations exist in Kuwait, with the University of Alberta in Edmonton/Canada and with the University of Birmingham, UK, among others. Details can be found on the International Networks page.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, headquartered in Germany, is one of the world’s leading organizations for applied research. It plays a major role in innovation by prioritizing research on cutting-edge technologies and the transfer of results to industry to strengthen Germany’s industrial base and for the benefit of society as a whole. Since its founding as a nonprofit organization in 1949, Fraunhofer has held a unique position in the German research and innovation ecosystem.

With nearly 32,000 employees across 75 institutes and independent research units in Germany, Fraunhofer operates with an annual budget of €3.6 billion, €3.1 billion of which is generated by contract research — Fraunhofer’s core business model. Unlike other public research organizations, base funding from the German federal and state governments is merely the foundation for the annual research budget. This serves as the basis for groundbreaking precompetitive research that will become important for the private sector and society in the years ahead. Fraunhofer’s distinctive feature is its large share of industry revenue, guaranteeing close collaboration with the private sector and industry, and the consistent focus of Fraunhofer’s research on the market. In 2024, industry revenue accounted for € 867 million of its budget. Fraunhofer’s research portfolio is augmented by competitively acquired public-sector funding, pursuing the right balance between public-sector and industry revenue.