The National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE is a research center of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft for its two Darmstadt-based institutes SIT and IGD, in cooperation with Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main, Technische Universität Darmstadt and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. This unique and innovative collaboration model of university and non-university research combines the Fraunhofer competencies and strengths with the competencies and strengths of the universities.

It also facilitates cutting-edge research to the benefit of society, business and government, and despite its main focus on computer science and technology it also includes interdisciplinary issues from such fields as legal and business or psychology and ethics sciences. The highly application-oriented profile of ATHENE includes technological transfers and startups as well.

More than 600 researchers in cybersecurity

ATHENE is offering optimal working conditions to the more than 600 researchers, allowing them to benefit from an inter­national environment and close contacts to the industry and business sectors. ATHENE addresses the big challenges of cybersecurity in long-term application-oriented missions. For example, ATHENE explores how to reliably protect Germany’s critical infrastructures (energy, traffic, etc.), and how to safeguard IT systems in the long run, even when faced with new technologies such as quantum computing. ATHENE identifies the essential application-oriented questions of cybersecurity and privacy in a continuous, extensive and proactive manner. The organizational and funding structures facilitate designing and carrying out research projects flexibly and efficiently.

The research center is located in Darmstadt, the City of Science. Darmstadt won BITKOM’s Germany-wide “Digital City“ competition. According to IW Consult of the German Economic Institute in Cologne, it is also the city with the best future prospects of all of Germany’s cities.

ATHENE is being funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)) and the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art (Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HMWK)).