Hamburg opens two new aviation research institutes at once

Two institutes by the German Aerospace Center DLR are being established in Hamburg, highlighting the Hanseatic city’s national and international claim to excellence in the area of aeronautics research. The new research institutes at the Center of Applied Aeronautical Research ZAL in Finkenwerder were launched in the presence of numerous guests of honour, including Hamburg’s First Mayor Olaf Scholz. The Institute of System Architectures in Aeronautics is going to focus in particular on digital development of future types of aircraft as well as on transferring innovative production processes (“digital aircraft”).

The Institute of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul is going to concentrate on research regarding aircraft operation, specialising in the development of new maintenance and data processing methods (“digital twin”). Planning provides for the two institutes to have 80 staff members each at the ZAL. The Federal State of Hamburg is going to become an official base of the DLR as a result. Hamburg’s Aeronautical Research Center with 600 work places, which is among the most advanced in the world and was opened only two years ago, is now fully let. More than 40,000 highly qualified staff members in more than 300 companies and institutions make Hamburg the third biggest civil aviation hub worldwide. The aeronautical industry is among the region’s most important economic factors. Hamburg’s decisive advantage is the fact that know-how of global acclaim is pooled in the area, regarding all stages of an aircraft’s life cycle – from pre-development through to recycling.

Hamburg’s First Mayor Olaf Scholz says: “We are pleased that the DLR decided to establish a branch in Hamburg. The close cooperation of science and the business world is going to give rise to innovations that will be trend-setting for the entire industry. The ZAL is a place of innovative ideas that result in new products for the aviation industry.”

“We are delighted that we are now represented in Hamburg, one of the biggest hubs of civil aviation world-wide, with two newly established DLR institutes and to closely cooperate in the ZAL with our industry partners, in the field of application-oriented research,” says Prof. Pascale Ehrenfreund on the occasion of the opening ceremony.

In the years ahead, the new institutes are going to receive an annual ten million euros of joint funding from the German federal and state governments. As the institutes’ home state, Hamburg is going to contribute around 1.6 million euros per year. Furthermore, the City of Hamburg is going to provide another two million euros for investments during the set-up phase until the end of 2018.
Industry-oriented research requires very close cooperation with the relevant industrial and mediumsized companies. This is why the institute is based in the ZAL, where the DLR has the opportunity to perform research in the same building and using shared large-scale testing facilities, with a large number of industrial partners from the aviation industry, including Airbus and Lufthansa Technik as well as suppliers and start-up companies.
Close coordination of the required research competence that needs to be established to allow for research results to be used by the industrial partners as effectively as possible, has already begun. In addition to the regional network, the institutes are planning to form research partnerships with various German and international companies.

The ZAL – Hamburg’s Center of Applied Aeronautical Research – is the technology network for research and development for the civil aviation industry in the metropolitan area of Hamburg. In close coordination with the Hamburg Aviation Cluster, the ZAL is a central facility where the technology competence for the Hanseatic city is concentrated, and it thus allows for synergy effects. For this purpose, the ZAL constitutes a network for science and the business world, establishing an application-oriented culture of innovation and providing its partners with state-of-the-art infrastructure for research and development.