The Institute for Composite Materials (IVW) is a non-profit organization. It develops new composite applications.

In various joint ventures with industrial customers and within funded research programs new materials, advanced composite design schemes, and manufacturing processes are investigated and – once the necessary fundamentals are understood – engineered for applications and tailored to meet the individual product requirements (“mission oriented research”).

Besides this, own ideas and concepts are also constituent elements of research work and advanced developments (“intrinsic research”). The knowledge gained through R&D is transferred: into industrial applications, into the education of engineers, and into new spin-off companies.