Some 80% of Bavaria’s manufacturers - 4,000 companies - produce, process or apply advanced materials. These companies have a total workforce of around one million. As these figures detail, Bavaria is at the forefront of this cross-disciplinary and highly-international field.

Headquartered in Bavaria or maintaining operations in the state are all of the leading companies in such sectors of application as electronics, industrial and automotive engineering, aerospace, the life sciences, ICT, and energy and environmental engineering.

The scope and quality of the research conducted by Bavaria’s internationally-renowned institutions of higher education and independent institutes cause companies to flock to work with them:

• Institute for Materials Engineering Sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (semiconductors, metals, polymers, ceramics, glass and composites)
• Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Bayreuth (semiconductors, polymers, ceramics, glass, metals, composites and functional materials)
• The Garching-based Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the new research reactor of TUM (Technical University Munich) (semiconductors, metals, polymers, ceramics and glass)
• Central Institute for Medical Technologies at TUM’s campus in Garching (biocompatible materials)
• Chair of materials engineering at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Würzburg (semiconductors, optoelectronic components, biomembranes)
• Chair of materials engineering at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Augsburg (magnetic and highly-conductive materials, center of applied research into materials and the environment)
• Research into metallic, semiconducting and magnetic nanostructures conducted by the Faculty for Physics at the University of Regensburg
• The Würzburg-based Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research (glass, ceramics, composites and functional materials)
• South German Center of Plastics (SKZ) in Würzburg (plastics processing technologies)
• Bayerisches Zentrum für Angewandte Energieforschung e.V. (photovoltaic technologies, special-purpose materials used in insulation and heat conducting)
• ATZ Center of Development in Sulzbach-Rosenberg (alternative permanent magnetic materials, laser sinter powders for rapid prototyping)
• Universities of Applied Sciences, including the ones in Nuremberg (materials sciences), in Ansbach (plastics processing) and in Rosenheim
• Bavarian Research Cooperation for energy-efficient building materials, glass (FORGLAS) 
  
• Bavarian Research Cooperation for the development of innovative coatings to reduce wear on tools with complex loads (FORLAYER)

A large pool of materials engineers and other highly-qualified employees
The excellent education provided by Bavaria’s system of materials engineering education manifests itself in the world-renowned qualifications held by employees in the field. Along with their high levels of motivation, these qualifications constitute the companies’ edge over competitors on international markets.

Intermeshed knowhow
A main driver of the development of Bavaria’s advanced materials cluster is the dedicated, multi-discipline Center of Expertise in Advanced Materials. It is operated by the Bayreuth-based KNMN (Kompetenzzentrum Neue Materialien Nordbayern GmbH (KNMN). Companies operating R & D facilities in the field include Neue Materialien Bayreuth GmbH (NMB), Neue Materialien Fürth GmbH (NMF) and Neue Materialien Würzburg (NMW).

Located close and working closely with Neue Materialien Bayreuth GmbH is BGZ, the Bayreuth-based incubation center for materials engineering. The facility provides start-ups with low-cost premises and services facilitating their development. The facilities maintained by the Center of Expertise in Materials Engineering have state-of-technology equipment and highly-qualified personnel. These are employed by providers of R & D services whose main clientele are SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) devoting themselves to materials engineering.

The responsibilities of the facilities are:

• Neue Materialien Bayreuth: composite materials and material composites, plastics, technical-use ceramics, ultra-light gauge materials featuring coated wovens, sinter processes producing carbides, response-capable milling tools, the optimizing of metals’ abilities to be welded.
• Neue Materialien Fürth: Studies on the rheological patterns shown by magnesium and aluminum, Thixo injection molding, extruding of powders (co-forming technologies, surface coating, formed parts made from plastics, using plasma to treat polymer materials
• Neue Materialien Würzburg: functional materials produced by integrating piezoceramics, PZT fiber modules, rheological liquids; formulation of data on materials, creation of designs used in adaptronics
• Kunststoff-Netzwerk Franken e.V. serves as the platform of information for and for the forging of working relationshps among the 40 companies forming northern Bavaria’s plastics processing industry.
• Landshut’s light-gauge network is comprised of more than 140 companies, research institutes and service providers. The network’s objective is the fostering of the development of light-gauge technologies.
• Carbon Composites (CCeV) in Augsburg is a network comprised of more than 100 companies in the area of composites and composite technologies. 

The cluster’s thrusts are the development of:

• light-gauge materials and design
• manufacturing technologies

Materials engineering encompasses a large number of sectors. This fact explains why the industry’s companies are to be found all throughout Bavaria. The research facilities devoting themselves to engineering advanced materials are the pacemakers of scientific development.

The main thrusts of development of the technical facilities are:

• Fürth: technologies of formed parts, metals and plastics
• Würzburg: functional materials, fillers, composites and processing technologies, fillers
• Bayreuth: polymers, ceramics, composites and foamed materials, and metals
• Augsburg: composites, processing technologies, fibres

The state of Bavaria provides support to the projects undertaken by materials engineering companies and fostering innovations. Bavaria’s materials engineering program is configured to assist those companies producing and processing new materials. The program lends support to technology transfers and to working relationships among the players in the materials engineering cluster. R & D consortia comprised of two or more companies and research institutes are eligible for state grants.

…is available from  „Key Technologies in Bayern“ . This database contains entries on Bavaria’s materials engineering companies.