Fraunhofer was founded in
Munich on March 26, 1949, by representatives of industry and academia and the governments of
Bavaria,
Hesse and
Württemberg. In 1952, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs declared the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft to be the third part of the non-university German research landscape (alongside the
German Research Foundation and the
Max Planck institutes). From 1954, Fraunhofer's first institutes were established. By 1956, it was also providing administrative assistance in the area of defence research in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of Defense. In 1959, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft comprised nine institutes with 135 employees and a budget of . In 1968, Fraunhofer became the target of public criticism for its role in military research. By 1969, Fraunhofer had more than 1,200 employees in 19 institutes, with a budget of . At this time, a commission for the promotion of the development of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft planned the further development of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. In 1972, it proposed a financing model that would make Fraunhofer dependent on its commercial success. This would later come to be known as the Fraunhofer model. The model was agreed to by the federal cabinet and the Joint Commission of the Federal and States Governments (
Bund-Länder-Komission) in 1973. In the same year, the executive board and central administration moved into joint accommodation at Leonrodstrasse 54 in Munich. In 1977, a general agreement on research promotion came into force stipulating that the political ownership of Fraunhofer would be shared by the German Federal Ministries of Defense and Research. In 1984, Fraunhofer had 3,500 employees in 33 institutes and a research budget of . Five years later, in 1989, the number of employees had increased to nearly 6,400, with Fraunhofer operating 37 institutes with a total budget of . In 1991, Fraunhofer faced the challenge of integrating numerous research establishments in former East Germany. By 1993, Fraunhofer's total budget exceeded . In 1994, Fraunhofer USA, Inc., was founded to manage the activities of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in the
U.S. The year 2000 marked a noteworthy success at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. The institute was awarded the
Deutscher Zukunftspreis (German Future Prize) for developing the audio format
MP3, which later on developed into a worldwide de facto standard. Between 2000 and 2001, the IT research institution
GMD – Forschungszentrum Informationstechnik (Information Technology Research Center) was integrated into Fraunhofer at the initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. In 2001, Fraunhofer Venture, a
technology transfer office, was established in order to enable employees and founders to build internationally successful companies from cutting-edge Fraunhofer technology. One year later, in 2002, ownership of the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut für Nachrichtentechnik Berlin GmbH, which belonged to the
Leibniz Association, was transferred to Fraunhofer. With this integration, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's budget exceeded 1 billion euros for the first time. In 2003, Fraunhofer headquarters moved to its own building in Hanstrasse 27 c in Munich. Two years later, the Fraunhofer Technology Academy was founded in collaboration with the
University of St. Gallen,
RWTH Aachen University, and the Hagen University of Distance Learning. In the same year, Fraunhofer's industrial revenues rose to 36 percent (a new record), helping to boost the organization's total business volume by 17 percent to . In 2007, Fraunhofer Attract was introduced, which is designed to help Fraunhofer recruit outstanding independent research scientists with innovative ideas. 2009, the former institutes of the
Forschungsgesellschaft für Angewandte Naturwissenschaften (Research Society for Applied Sciences) were converted into Fraunhofer institutes. In the following years, Fraunhofer continued to grow. In 2015, its budget amounted to more than . On March 26, 2024, Fraunhofer celebrated its 75th anniversary. == Presidents ==