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 a leading organization for applied research. It plays a pivotal role in innovation by focusing on cutting-edge technologies and transferring research results to industry in order to strengthen Germany as a business location and benefit society. Since its founding as a nonprofit in 1949, Fraunhofer has held a unique position in the German research and innovation ecosystem.

With more than 30,000 employees at 74 institutes and independent research units in Germany, Fraunhofer operates with an annual budget of 3.6 billion euros. Contract research, Fraunhofer's mainstay, generates 3.2 billion of this budget. Unlike other public research organizations, institutional funding from federal and state governments accounts for no more than one-third of Fraunhofer's contract research budget. Institutional funding is thus merely the base of Fraunhofer’s main business model and serves as the foundation for groundbreaking pre-competitive research that will become important for industry and society in the years ahead.

What truly sets Fraunhofer apart is its high share of industrial revenue, which ensures close collaboration with the private sector while keeping Fraunhofer's research focused on the market. Fraunhofer raises at least two-thirds of its contract research budget competitively from private-sector contracts and public project funding. In 2025, industrial revenue alone accounted for 966 million euros.