FZT 86:  Mathematics for Key Technologies: Modelling, Simulation, and Optimization of Real-World Processes

• Subject Area: Mathematics
• Term: from 2002 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485610

Mathematics is one of the driving forces in the development of many modern key technologies and in their implementation and use in practice. This concerns areas such as biotechnology, medicine, traffic planning, finance and insurance industries, material science, production and energy, chemical engineering, information and optical technologies. These areas form a basis for economic success. Their development is characterized by two tendencies: while the innovation cycles are getting shorter and shorter, their complexity is getting higher and higher. Mathematics, properly developed and applied, can significantly contribute to success in the highly competitive race for technological advancement.
Mathematics delivers the formal apparatus for precise modeling, the theoretical tools for structural analysis of the problems and it develops algorithms for the efficient solution and optimization. Mathematics is itself a key technology.
The high speed of scientific development and the interest of industry to transfer this quickly into new products, however, is threatening to use up the "reservoir of available mathematics" in many areas. It is more and more necessary to develop new mathematics in a focussed way in parallel to the development of new technologies.
The aim of the research center is to develop new mathematical methods for the modeling, simulation and optimization of complex systems, as they arise in modern key technologies. This requires a high coordination between the applied sciences and the mathematics but also within mathematics, since most applications do not fit to the classical mathematical areas or require the creation of new mathematical fields. This basic interdisciplinary approach that we follow will also lead to a long-lasting change in the mathematics curricula and is expected to change the awareness for mathematics in society.

• DFG Programme: DFG Research Centres

Projects

• Central Administration (Project Head Mehrmann, Volker )
• Education (Project Head Kramer, Jürg )
• Electronic and photonic devices (Project Heads Mehrmann, Volker ;  Mielke, Alexander ;  Schmidt, Frank )
• Finance (Project Heads Becherer, Dirk ;  Imkeller, Peter )
• Life sciences (Project Heads Bockmayr, Alexander ;  Deuflhard, Peter J. ;  Schütte, Christof )
• Networks (Project Heads Grötschel, Martin ;  Möhring, Rolf H. ;  Skutella, Martin )
• Production (Project Heads Carstensen, Carsten ;  Hömberg, Dietmar ;  Tröltzsch, Fredi )
• Visualization (Project Heads Polthier, Konrad ;  Sullivan, Ph.D., John M. ;  Ziegler, Günter M. )

• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Berlin
• Participating University: Freie Universität Berlin; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Participating Institution: Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik (WIAS); Leibniz-Institut im Forschungsverbund Berlin e. V.; Zuse-Institut Berlin (ZIB)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Volker Mehrmann