Fraunhofer Plastics Center Oberlausitz opened

On November 2, the new building of the Fraunhofer Center for Plastics in Upper Lusatia, located in the immediate vicinity of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, was officially inaugurated. More than 120 guests from the business, political, and research communities accepted the invitation from the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology (IWU). The new technical center has created good conditions for conducting even more intensive research into the development and testing of lightweight construction technologies in a partnership with academia and industry, and for further deepening the transfer of knowledge and technology with the plastics industry in Saxony.

Thanks to its proximity to the Zittau-Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and the universities in Liberec and Wroclaw, the Zittau location offers unique opportunities for close trinational collaboration between academia and industry. A Fraunhofer project group funded by the Free State of Saxony has therefore been working there since 2011 on the development of lightweight construction technologies. Together with numerous companies in the region from the fields of plastics and metal processing, automotive and energy technology, as well as container and equipment manufacturing, application-oriented research projects for technological and product innovations are already being carried out. ““With the completion of the new technical center in Zittau and the commissioning of new experimental equipment and pilot plants, the conditions are good for joint R&D activities that serve as a bridge to Poland and the Czech Republic,” explains Prof. Welf-Guntram Drossel, director of the Fraunhofer IWU.

During the ceremonial event, prominent representatives from politics and research recognized the significance of the new technical center and, at the same time, expressed their expectations for it. Speakers included: Dr. Eva-Maria Stange, Saxon State Minister for Science and the Arts; Michael Kretschmer, Member of the Bundestag; Prof. Friedrich Albrecht, Rector of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences; Prof. Reimund Neugebauer, President of the Fraunhofer Society; Prof. Sebastian Scholz, Head of the Project Group for Function-Integrating Polymer Technologies at Fraunhofer IWU and holder of the professorship of the same name at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences; Prof. Lothar Kroll, Spokesperson for the Federal Cluster of Excellence “Technology Fusion for Multifunctional Lightweight Structures – MERGE” at Chemnitz University of Technology; Dr. Martin Kausch, Head of the Department of Applied Polymer Technologies at Fraunhofer IWU.

Dr. Eva-Maria Stange, Saxon State Minister for Science and the Arts, particularly highlighted the good collaboration between the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and the Fraunhofer Society: “Here in Zittau, I am once again delighted to see how good the respective missions, ambitions, and strengths of Fraunhofer and the universities of applied sciences complement one another and can be combined synergistically. This is yet another example of how the Fraunhofer Society and Saxon universities of applied sciences are working ever more closely together to jointly provide what is needed in the region and beyond: namely, highly educated individuals and research findings that help companies of all sizes in the region strengthen their innovative capacity.”