Fraunhofer Future Foundation timeline

Fraunhofer makes history by developing algorithms for compression of audio files (mp3), achieving worldwide success. It is hard to imagine everyday life without this innovation. Along with its technological uniqueness, mp3 also owes its success to the marketing efforts of the team of developers. Often treated with condescension at first, the researchers manage to overcome the resistance and make mp3 a market success.

Extraordinarily high mp3 license-fee revenue lays the financial basis for the establishment of the Fraunhofer Future Foundation, which is created on November 18, 2008. The sole donor is Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung angewandter Forschung e. V. In addition to initial endowment capital of 5 million euros, the foundation can also access 215 million euros in spending capital, which allows it to support large-volume projects geared toward technological breakthroughs.

Flush with mp3 license-fee revenue in the nine digits, the Fraunhofer Future Foundation initially supports projects aimed at building new patent clusters and developing previously unknown know-how. During this period, funding projects such as “Si-Beacon — Unlimited and resource-conserving solar cells based on metallurgic silicon” are typically in the pre-competitive research stage. These projects are aimed at solving problems that may not become relevant to industry and society until five or ten years down the road.

Amid mounting societal challenges, the Fraunhofer Future Foundation shifts the fields in which it operates, focusing more on sustainable development. The foundation continues to support exclusively research within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, but it reduces terms and funding volumes. Projects such as “EDDA — Efficient Humanitarian Assistance through Intelligent Image Analysis” forge ties between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the research expertise of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.