Under the theme “Knowledge. Prosperity. Change. – Research with Impact,” the FONA Forum took place on June 24 and 25, 2026, at Futurium Berlin. The OIMD was represented by Julian Schwarze and was on site with the InterMoDe research project—at the BMFTR Research for Sustainable Cities and Regions booth, together with the team from the DLR Project Management Agency. FONA
The forum brought together representatives from academia, politics, business, and civil society to discuss the future of sustainability research and the transfer of scientific findings into practice. The focus was on the new FONA strategy, which Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär presented for the first time at the forum’s opening—with funding now even more consistently geared toward concrete technology development and rapid application. For a design-oriented research institute like the OIMD, this is an encouraging direction: the path from research to application is precisely where design makes its impact.
At the booth, participants were able to experience the VR Lab developed as part of the InterMoDe project for themselves. Among other things, the VR Lab was used in the project as a participatory tool—for example, to explore what the transit stop of tomorrow might look like and how different scenarios and visions of the future of intermodal mobility affect test subjects. The forum once again highlighted the potential of immersive methods for science communication and public engagement: Futures that you can walk through yourself spark different conversations than plans on paper.
Beyond the booth presentation, the forum offered two days of intensive discussion—on communication, knowledge transfer, and the question of how research on sustainability can be implemented even more effectively in the future. We thank the BMFTR and the DLR Project Management Agency for the invitation and the excellent collaboration at the booth, and we’re taking many new ideas back with us to Offenbach.
