Ombudsperson for scientific integrity

Are external or already published contributions correctly cited in the scientific thesis and their sources correctly and accurately stated? Do all contributing authors and only those appear on the submitted publication? Do you have any doubts? Then the ombudsperson for science is there to help you!

Whenever questions and conflicts arise in the area of good scientific practice or scientific integrity, Fraunhofer employees receive advice and support. External persons may also contact the ombudsperson with questions about the scientific practices at Fraunhofer FOKUS.

According to the German Research Foundation (DFG), to ensure good scientific practice and scientific integrity, each scientific institution should appoint an ombudsperson; this includes the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and its institutes. 

At Fraunhofer FOKUS, Dr. Armin Wolf has been appointed to assist in communicating the guidelines and provide the scientific staff with advice and support in matters of scientific integrity, but also in cases of suspected scientific misconduct (e.g. plagiarism, honorary authorships, forgeries, etc.). All these sensitive matters are, of course, treated confidentially.

Dr. Armin Wolf is the ombudsperson for scientific integrity at Fraunhofer FOKUS. With decades of experience as a computer scientist specializing in planning and optimization, he heads the IT4Energy Center at Fraunhofer FOKUS. Dr. Wolf started as a research assistant at the TU Berlin, where he received his doctorate with distinction. Subsequently, he was a senior scientist at the Society for Mathematics and Data Processing (GMD) at the Research Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology (FIRST). He accompanied the mergers of GMD into the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and then the integration of Fraunhofer FIRST into Fraunhofer FOKUS.

The deputy ombudsperson is Prof. Dr. Holger Schlingloff. He is Chief Scientist of the System Quality Center (SQC) at Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, and simultaneously Professor of Software Engineering with a focus on specification, verification, and test theory at the Humboldt University of Berlin.