History - Fraunhofer FOKUS

The origins of Fraunhofer FOKUS date back to 1988, and its roots and “scientific heart” lie in distributed systems, i.e., the networking and interaction of independent computing systems to increase performance, reliability, scalability, cost reduction, and flexibility. As in all research areas, the methods here have successively changed, developed, and adapted, but all new concepts and methods are ultimately always based on the same fundamentals as their “common denominator“.

Institute for Digital Transformation

Eingang des Fraunhofer FOKUS mit einer bunten Lichtinstallation in Form einer 30 davor — © Michael Zalewski / Fraunhofer FOKUS
Fraunhofer FOKUS celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2018.

2024: The institute completes its strategy audit with a clear focus on the transfer of research to industry.
2024: The “Corporate Star Awards” are presented at the IBC in Amsterdam. The “Ecoflow” project wins in the “Best Carbon Footprint Improvement Initiative” category. Fraunhofer FOKUS contributes its experience from the “Green Streaming” project to the initiative.
2024: The BMBF project AI-NET receives the CELTIC-NEXT Innovation Award 2024 at the 6G conference in Berlin for its outstanding developments and key performance indicators.
2020: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, almost overnight, the institute manages to switch to a nearly 100 percent home office operation in March. The institute continues to support its customers and partners in these extraordinary times with its digitalization expertise and know-how in various fields.
2019: At the end of September, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker was appointed head of department at the BMBF, thus stepping down from the management of the institute, for which she was jointly responsible with the institute's executive director Prof. Dr. Manfred Hauswirth. Dr. Tom Ritter was announced as deputy director of the institute in November. Previously, he headed the business unit SQC – Quality Engineering at Fraunhofer FOKUS with about 80 employees.
2017: The FOKUS Academy is being set up. Part of the academy is the “Lernlabor Cybersicherheit Berlin-Brandenburg”, which will be opened in June together with colleges from Berlin and Brandenburg and the Fraunhofer Academy.
2017: The Berlin Center “Digital Transformation” is opened as a cooperation between the Berlin Fraunhofer institutes: FOKUS, Heinrich Hertz (HHI), Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK) and Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM). The speaker is Prof. Dr. Manfred Hauswirth.
2017: The Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior introduces KATWARN nationwide in June.
2017: Following a nationwide competition, the German Internet Institute is founded in Berlin/ Brandenburg under the name “Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society”. Fraunhofer FOKUS is a partner and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker was a member of the founding board of directors and continued to be a member of the board in 2019.
2016: The ITEA project DIAMONDS has won the prestigious EUREKA Innovation Award in the category “value creation” and the project pitch during the “EUREKA Innovation Week” in Stockholm.
2016: Fraunhofer FOKUS bundles its activities under the main theme “Digital Transformation”. The successful strategy audit reinforces the new direction.

Integration of the ICT institutes in Berlin

Gebäude des Fraunhofer ISST in der Steinstrasse Berlin — © Fraunhofer ISST
Building of Fraunhofer ISST

2015: The Executive Board of the Fraunhofer Society appointed Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker on January 1 in the institute management of FOKUS. She heads the institute together with Prof. Dr. Manfred Hauswirth and holds parallel a professorship at the Free University of Berlin for Model-based development and quality assurance of software-based systems.
2014: Prof. Dr. Manfred Hauswirth becomes institute director on October 1. Concurrently, he becomes professor for “Open Distributed Systems” at the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin). Prof. Popescu-Zeletin retires from his position as Director of Fraunhofer FOKUS on September 30.
2013: The Competence Center Public IT (ÖFIT) is founded by the German ministry of the interior. Awarded as “Selected place in the country of ideas” by the Germany-wide innovation competition “365 places in the country of ideas” for the early warning system KATWARN.
2012: The three Berlin information and communication Institutes FOKUS, FIRST and ISST-Berlin are merged under the name Fraunhofer FOKUS. 490 employees in eleven competence centers now develop information and communication technologies for smart cities.
2012: Berthold Butscher, vice manager of FOKUS, retires after more than 24 years at FOKUS and is replaced by Gerd Schürmann.
2012: FOKUS opens the innovation center “FOKUS InnoCity” in Santiago de Chile. With the new research site and in cooperation with South-American partners from industry, politics and science FOKUS wants to develop smart city solutions for the region.

FOKUS becomes a Fraunhofer institute

Fraunhofer FIRST in Berlin-Adlershof 2004 — © Bernhard Schurian / Fraunhofer FIRST
Building of Fraunhofer FIRST in Berlin Adlershof in 2004

2010: Introduction of the new German identity card: In cooperation with partners from the economy and public administration Fraunhofer FOKUS was significantly involved in the introduction of the new identity card of the Federal Republic of Germany.
2010: Awarded as “Selected place in the country of ideas” by the Germany-wide innovation competition “365 places in the country of ideas” for the mobile ridesharing “OpenRide”.
2010: The Future Internet Assembly awards the project “Panlab”, which is funded by the European Union and led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Magedanz (Fraunhofer FOKUS), with the “Future Internet Award”.
2010: Fraunhofer FOKUS is awarded with the “TeleTrusT Innovation Award 2010” for the data protection supporting combination of the new German identity card and the Microsoft technology U-Prove.
2006: The successful spin-offs Iptel.org and Twonky Vision GmbH are sold to US American companies.
2005: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Radu Popescu-Zeletin receives the highest decoration of the Republic of Rumania (Ordinul National Pentru Merit in grad de Comandor).
2005: The magazine “Bild der Wissenschaft” elects Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker as one of the top ten German scientists.
2005: Opening of test- and development-labs in which own developments and products of our partners are integrated and practical scenarios are developed.
2004: For her outstanding performances in research and teaching Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker is awarded with the Alfred-Krupp promotion prize for young university lecturers.

In times of GMD

Historisches Schwarzweißfoto des »Zentrum am Zoo« mit dem »Zoo Palast« im Vordergrund in Berlin — © Lehnartz
“Zentrum am Zoo” in Berlin: First headquarter of Fraunhofer FOKUS in West-Berlin.

2001: The GMD and the Fraunhofer Association merge: FOKUS is from now on the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems. There is a reorientation towards application-oriented research in a business environment. More than 200 employees work in eight competence centers.
1997: FOKUS moves to the “Atrium” in the Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee in Berlin-Charlottenburg. 173 employees work at FOKUS.
1996: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Radu Popescu-Zeletin receives the Rumanian science award for his life work.
1988: The research centre for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS) is founded as an institute of the Society for Mathematics and Information Technology (GMD) by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Radu Popescu-Zeletin in Berlin. The core area of FOKUS' work is the development and testing of new architectures and procedures for innovative applications in a broadband environment.