The Institute for Materials Resource Management (MRM) at the University of Augsburg was founded in 2009 and moved into its multifunctional new research building at the south end of the Augsburg University campus at the end of 2020. The mission of the MRM is basically to develop new cycle-oriented structural materials up to application maturity - under the aspect of sustainability and efficient use of resources.

In this context, the participating chairs and professorships research both on new structural materials, their properties and the associated process routes, as well as the economic, ecological and social challenges in terms of the circular economy that are associated with them. MRM is dedicated to the consideration of complete value chains and their optimization with regard to resource and energy efficiency. The spectrum includes work in the field of materials chemistry and the development of polymer and ceramic composite materials as well as hybrid material composites and also covers questions about manufacturing technology. With this, the scientists work interdisciplinarily from the microscopic level on a laboratory scale to the characterization of components under application-related stresses. These aspects are also researched on industrially relevant scales and consistently further developed with regard to a fully digitized process and simulation chain. With this portfolio, MRM offers the basis for the use of artificial intelligence in production as well as in materials science and engineering.

Many activities aim at putting the developed concepts into practice, which requires a close connection between basic research and applied research. That is why the MRM cooperates closely with non-university research institutes in the region, i.e. with the neighboring institutes of the Fraunhofer Society, the German Aerospace Center and the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences. In addition, MRM is playing a leading role in the establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Production Network founded on January 1, 2021.

With a holistic view of value chains, the Bavarian Swabian region offers a unique opportunity to research the closed value chain of new structural materials. This means that MRM has a unique selling point as compared to other regions in Bavaria and Germany.