Today, industrial companies face a dual transformation challenge: they must consistently align their value creation with climate neutrality while simultaneously securing their competitiveness in an increasingly fragmented, geopolitically shaped environment. At the Center for Economics and Management of Technologies (CEM), Fraunhofer IKTS brings together comprehensive expertise and demonstrates how technology-economic expertise can enable a sustainable and resilient industry.

The focus is on industrial value chains and networks in key sectors, such as the chemical industry, the energy sector, the bioeconomy, and the water, raw materials, waste, and circular economy sectors. At HANNOVER MESSE 2026, Fraunhofer IKTS will use the example of decentralized ammonia value chains and CCUS technologies to demonstrate how innovations can be evaluated early on using techno-economic modeling with regard to their economic viability, environmental impact, and regulatory integration—from individual technologies to optimized overall systems. This enables the identification of robust, scalable business models that can withstand volatile market and technological conditions. Companies thus gain a solid basis for decision-making regarding investments and transformation pathways.

In addition to technological issues, Fraunhofer IKTS also addresses the new realities of trade policy: Geopolitical tensions, supply chain risks, strategic autonomy, and international competition in subsidies are fundamentally changing investment decisions. Using an LCR similarity index, Fraunhofer IKTS systematically compares different measures—for example, in terms of the degree of commitment, the depth of intervention, location commitment, and political goal orientation. This reveals that there is a broad spectrum between voluntary incentives and de facto obligations, which must be strategically designed to enable industrial transformation without exacerbating distortions of competition.