Press

The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE is one of the ten nationwide winners of the university competition in the Science Year 2026 – Medicine of the Future with its project "My Twin, My Rules – A Data Café on the Future of Health Data." From a total of 220 submissions, the best communication ideas from young researchers were honored, including the project by Jean Stadlbauer, data scientist in the Digital Health Engineering department at Fraunhofer IESE. The winning teams will each receive 10,000 euros to implement their projects by the end of 2026.

Local authorities that want to make their heat supply climate-neutral face major challenges: they have to evaluate gas and district heating networks, assess future energy requirements, and develop suitable solutions for a CO2-free energy supply. In practice, there is often a lack of overview: data is scattered, scenarios are difficult to compare, and connections remain invisible. A practical report by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) shows how digital twins can strategically support municipal heat planning.

Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE, the Friends of Digital Farming network, and the German Agricultural Society, supports businesses in the digital implementation of sustainability issues.

Although menopause – also known as perimenopause – can significantly impair women's well-being and performance, medical education and support have often been inadequate to date. As part of the joint project “PETRA: AI-supported, educational therapy support for perimenopause,” researchers are now developing an AI-supported app that offers personalized information to affected women, thereby helping to improve their symptoms. In addition to the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE as consortium leader, four partners are participating in the project: the digital health startup FEMNA, the junior professorship for health and e-health at Ruhr University Bochum, the social research center of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Dortmund Technical University, and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité. The project for gender-equitable medicine is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space with around two million euros over a project period of three years.

On November 1, 2025, Jörg Dörr joined the institute management team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE. Together with the current director Peter Liggesmeyer, he will co-lead the institute, which specializes in efficient software development. They will share responsibilities: Jörg Dörr will serve as scientific director while Peter Liggesmeyer will act as managing director.

From October 21 to 22, Rotterdam hosted Synergy Days, the leading conference for digital innovation in the European agricultural and food sector. This was the first time that the European Common European Agricultural Data Space (CEADS) project was presented to a broad international audience.

On September 9, the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE hosted a hybrid workshop on the topic of Autonomik. This term refers to a new interdisciplinary field that not only deals with the technical fundamentals and methods for autonomous systems, but also integrates social, economic, and legal issues. The goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the complex effects of autonomous technologies and to shape them responsibly. The need for this interdisciplinary field arises from the increasing importance of autonomous systems. Interdisciplinary cooperation between individual disciplines (computer science, social sciences, law, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, economics, structural sciences) is essential for their development and implementation, but is increasingly proving to be a bottleneck. Autonomik allows autonomous systems to be viewed, developed, and deployed holistically, taking into account the obstacles to implementing visions of the future. Since these obstacles are not purely technical in nature, Autonomik is a cross-disciplinary field. It forms the basis for the development and operation of autonomous systems.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE and South Korean company Perseus Co., Ltd. have intensified their strategic partnership in the field of software-defined vehicles (SDV). The aim of the collaboration is to further develop digital twin technologies and to develop innovative solutions for simulation, virtualization, and virtual verification and validation in the automotive industry.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, Minister of Science Hoch, Mayor Kimmel, and Fraunhofer President Hanselka emphasized the national and international significance of Fraunhofer IESE's research achievements.

CAR-T therapy is a state-of-the-art cancer treatment in which cancer cells are recognized and destroyed with the help of the patient's own immune cells. The therapy is highly effective, but also involves a complex, lengthy and often manual production process that can currently only be carried out at a limited number of sites. The new EASYGEN research project is tackling this problem: Under the consortium leadership of Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, a consortium consisting of 18 partners has joined forces with the aim of developing a fully automated, hospital-based platform that can be used to produce personalized CAR-T cell therapies within a few days and on site at the hospital.