Research Infrastructures

State-of-the-art technologies and their further development are of fundamental significance for top-level research. The University of Freiburg has thus given high priority to a continuous development of research infrastructures in the past years. In particular, this includes the establishment of core facilities designed to guarantee professional and efficient operations.

Core facilities concentrate large-scale equipment that cannot be purchased by individual users due to its high complexity or high cost at a single location. Core facilities are operated by qualified scientific personnel, offer users comprehensive services (e.g. analyses, methodology development, training courses, access to equipment), and have individual user regulations. Most interdisciplinary core facilities are located at research centres and in research buildings:

• Freiburger Zentrum für interaktive Werkstoffe und bioinspirierte Technologien (FIT):
  • Core Facility “Bildgebung von Materialsystemen“
  • Core Facility “Fertigungstechnik”
  • Core Facility “Modellierung und Simulation von Materialsystemen”

• Signalling Campus (Hilde Mangold Haus, Signalhaus):
  • Life Imaging Center (LIC)
  • Core Facility Signalling Factory
  • Robotics Facility

• Institute of Organic Chemistry (Hilde Mangold House):
  • Core Competence Metabolomics

• Department of Microsystems Engineering:
  • Reinraum Service Center
    
• List of core facilities located at the Faculty of Medicine

The University of Freiburg also promotes the establishment of research infrastructure networks to support researchers in their work. The networks are not limited to Freiburg but also operate nationally and internationally:

In order to better exploit the great potential of collaboration under the umbrella of Eucor – The European Campus, the jointly usable research infrastructures of the European Campus universities are being actively identified. In 2016, the Microscopy and Image Analysis Platform (MIAP) was established in Freiburg to form a common network for the scientific infrastructure of imaging core facilities and life science sites in Freiburg, Basel, Mulhouse, and Strasbourg.

As part of the European ELLIS network, Freiburg researchers promote European collaboration at the interface of robotics, computer vision, and machine learning. The Freiburg ELLIS unit is located in the research building for Intelligent Machine-Brain Interfacing Technology (IMBIT). In the field of computer science, the University of Freiburg is also actively involved in the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure (de.NBI) and the European Galaxy Server.

In the Magnetic Resonance Network (MagRes), the users of high-sensitivity spectrometers at various institutes have come together to create an overview of the MR resources available at the University of Freiburg and to exchange ideas on a regular basis.