The Institute for Oscillation Research IsF is set up in Karlsruhe. It later becomes the Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing IITB.
In 2010, Fraunhofer IITB merges with the FGAN Institute for Optronics and Pattern Recognition FOM in Ettlingen to form the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technology and Image Evaluation IOSB.
Research minister Gerhard Stoltenberg sets up a commission to promote the expansion of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft comes under heavy criticism for its part in defence research. In some cases, the police have to be called to fend off the threat of student occupation of institutes.
This coincides with the Petras incident: an employee of the Grafschaft Institute for Aerobiology, Ehrenfried Petras, defects to the German Democratic Republic, where he publicly claims that the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is participating in preparations for ABC warfare.
In October 1968, Otto Mohr takes over as acting president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
The Institute for Floor Covering Research and Materials Testing IFM, formerly IfS, is devolved from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
After twenty years, more than 1,200 people are employed by the 19 Fraunhofer institutes and the central administration. The total budget of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is now 33 million marks.
The Working Group for Physical Space Research APW takes up its work; it is later renamed the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM. The Documentation Center for Radiochemistry DRc in Munich closes down.
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is included in the government basic funding scheme.
The Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, which until this time had been under the administration of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, is finally integrated. The Working Group for Applied Materials Research AFAM in Bremen is set up and later integrated as the Institute for Applied Materials Research IFAM in 1974.
The government commission to promote the expansion of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft presents its recommendations. The report includes a list of possible future Fraunhofer Institutes plus recommendes conceptional and organizational changes. Proposed measures includes a scheme to coordinate preliminary research activities, contract research and research projects, to balance regional distribution of the institutes, to create focal activities based on their geographical proximity, and to introduce results-oriented remuneration.
A joint committee consisting of representatives of the federal research ministry and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is inaugurated, entrusted with the task of drawing up detailed plans for the expansion of the organization.
The new constitution of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft provides for greater power by the Senate and major reinforcement of the three-member Executive Board, whose functions become fully professional and no longer honorary. On the whole, this represents a move towards organizational structures more closely related to those of industry. Each Fraunhofer Institute is assigned a specific area of research.
As a spin-off of the Ernst Mach Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, EMI, the Institute for Solid Mechanics IFKM is founded in Freiburg, which later becomes the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM.
The Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg is taken over by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
The Dokumentationszentrale Wasser DZW in Düsseldorf is opened.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft