New Management at the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center
At January first, Nina Kloster assumed management at the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center in Duisburg. She succeeds Volkmar Keuter, who changed to Fraunhofer UMSICHT in Oberhausen at the same time.
Nina Kloster studied Industrial Design at the University Duisburg-Essen before obtaining a doctorate in Medicine at the Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz. In the past six years, she worked as a scientific employee at the Fraunhofer institute for Environment-, Safety- and Energy Engineering UMSICHT in Oberhausen. She managed several research- and development projects within the business unit “Systemic Product Development” as well as the application-oriented research group “Medicine, Technology, Design”. Being an interdisciplinary interface, her team develops and examines holistic products and application concepts aiming to enhance the individual quality of life and to cope with the demographic challenge. Their work focuses on innovative assistance systems, preventative products and systems for the medical, - sports and healthcare sector. Furthermore, being a former UMSICHT employee, sustainability is a core aspect of a product understanding fit for the future. Therefore, environment-friendly, cycle –able product solutions and processing methods, energy-efficiency as well as issues of acceptance and user-behavior were crucial topics of her work at the institute from Oberhausen. These topics will also be essential to her prospective work at the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center.
Thus Nina Kloster possesses a broad Know-how, which she will contribute to the various business fields of the Europe-wide unique innovation workshop of application-oriented, close-to-the-market research for intelligent room- and building systems, the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center.
The development of new ideas and visionary, strategic approaches for a reorientation of the inHaus-Center, the development of creative ideas for research assignments as well as a sustainable support for technology-oriented Start-ups will be among the first challenges, which Nina Kloster will approach. In her commission as director of the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center she succeeds Volkmer Keuter, who after three years of in-Haus-management will attend to process intensification in the fields of building-integrated production of grocery production, water processing and photonic systems at the Fraunhofer UMSICHT. During his term in office at the inHaus in Duisburg, two new application laboratories, the “inRaum ATMO” (Future Office) and the “Hospital Engineering” (Future Hospital) were newly opened.
Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center
The potential of several Fraunhofer institutes and numerous partners from the industry is bundled in the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center in order to test and demonstrate innovative systems and products for residential and commercial buildings in application laboratories. The idea workshop from Duisburg acts as an incubator for the support of technology-oriented, innovative Start-ups and offers sufficient space for visionary research-and development work with a MakerSpace and FabLabs. Guided laboratory-tours, demo exhibitions, innovation workshops and further education- and training seminars top off the broad range of offerings.