About the Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance

For the first time, Fraunhofer now offers the market a central contact point for integral system solutions in the field of construction. The extensive portfolio is oriented towards both smaller and larger medium-sized companies. The Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance is a carrier and initiator of new and innovative topics in the context of construction research.

All customer inquiries are received centrally at the administrative offices in the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Holzkirchen, Germany and are then routed to the appropriate Alliance member institutes.

Objectives

The objective of the Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance is to represent and process all scientific and research-relevant questions on the topic of construction from a single source within Fraunhofer. This will provide the construction industry with a central contact point for integral system solutions.

Here 11 Fraunhofer institutes have joined together to form the "Building Innovation Alliance". The specific existing expertise of the individual Alliance institutes is thus consolidated under a shared identity as the Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance.

Correspondingly, the broad portfolio of services offered is geared towards both smaller and larger players in the construction industry. The Building Innovation Alliance however also sees itself as a carrier of new and innovative topics, which it addresses and when appropriate redefines in scientific terms. The Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance is intended to function as an interface between business, research and politics.

Assignments

The Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance defines its assignment as systematically addressing the existing need for innovation. This is intended to help ensure Germany's viability as an economic location in international competition.

Traditionally the construction sector is regarded as less of a high-tech industry. This is due to frequent obstacles to innovation, such as the tight time and cost constraints placed on construction projects and a high proportion of small and medium-sized companies in the value creation chain.

As a result the fundamental innovation activities take place not in the main construction industry itself, but rather in the supplier sector. Knowledge of innovation potential is however primarily tied to civil engineers and architects. This situation has in the past made the targeted development of innovation more difficult. With its long years of experience in the construction industry the Fraunhofer Building Innovation Alliance thus sees itself as an interface between innovation potentials and innovative strength.

The institutes hope that by collaborating they will be able to make an important contribution to more efficient processing of complex tasks in the areas of development, application and optimization of intelligent construction materials, systems and processes.

List of Members