Holger Hanselka

Holger Hanselka is the 11th president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a role that he assumed on August 15, 2023.

A mechanical engineer who was born in Oldenburg in 1961, Holger Hanselka was president of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) from 2013 to 2023, leading it back into the ranks of Germany’s Universities of Excellence. During this time, he was also vice president of the Research Field Energy at the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers (HGF) and played a decisive role in shaping the German research landscape.

From 2001 to 2013, he was the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF in Darmstadt and, from 2006 to 2012, a member of the presidential council of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

Holger Hanselka also served as vice president of the Technical University of Darmstadt from 2011 to 2013, where he was also in charge of the System Reliability and Machine Acoustics research group from 2001 to 2013. From 1997 to 2001, he held the chair of Adaptronics and was head of the Experimental Mechanics working group at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg.

Holger Hanselka studied mechanical engineering at the Clausthal University of Technology. He then became a research scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), where he specialized in lightweight construction and fiber composites. In 1992, he completed his doctorate at the Clausthal University of Technology and continued working at the DLR, leading various research projects — including international ones — with a focus on lightweight construction and smart structures.

As a member of the German federal government’s Wissenschaftsplattform Klimaschutz (Climate Protection Science Platform) and Plattform Lernende Systeme (Learning Systems Platform) steering committees and as a participant of the federal chancellor’s Zukunftsrat (Future Council), Holger Hanselka plays an active role in various central innovation policy advisory boards on relevant issues in science and research policy.