As part of a visit to the US to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the German Unification, the Honorable Kurt Beck, Minister-President of the State of Rheinland-Pfalz, and members of his delegation, visited the Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering (CESE) and its University Partner, the University of Maryland on October 4, 2005.

Director Rance Cleaveland (left) welcomes Minister-President Kurt Beck of Rheinland-Plafz (right) at the entrance to our center. In the middle: Prof. Dieter Rombach, director of Fraunhofer IESE, CESE’s sister institute in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Rheinland-Pfalz is one of the 16 states that form the Federal Republic of Germany. Located in the mid-west of Germany it shares borders with Belgium, Luxemburg, and France and can be regarded as in the center of the Europe Union. Rheinland-Pfalz is home to roughly 4.0 million people. The state capital is Mainz. Other towns include Kaiserslautern, Koblenz, Ludwigshafen, or the historic towns of Trier, which the Romans dubbed “the second Rome,” and Worms, on whose Niebelungen myths Wagner built his “Ring” Cycle. Rheinland-Pfalz is known for its wine producing regions along the Rhein River or the famed Mosel Valley.

Most important for Fraunhofer, of course, is the fact that Rheinland-Pfalz is a high-technology industrial state, with strengths in biotechnology and chemical engineering, information technology, and environmental engineering. For instance, BASF in Ludwigshafen is Europe's largest chemical factory complex and Rheinland-Pfalz's largest manufacturing firm. The city of Kaiserslautern is home to the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), sister institute of CESE, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM).

Accompanying Minister-President Beck was a highly prestigious delegation of more then 35 people including representatives of the states parliament, from industry, research institutes, and media. Among them, Dieter Rombach, director of CESE’s sister institute IESE, and professor of the computer science department at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. Besides other representative from the regions information technology

sector, senior personnel from two major biotechnology firms: Boehringer-Ingelheim, one of the world’s top-20 pharmaceutical companies, and BASF, probably the world’s leading chemical company, where part of the delegation visiting our center.

CESE’s director, Rance Cleaveland and chief scientist and CESE co-founder Victor Basili, whom are also professors of the computer science department at the University of Maryland, greeted the delegation and provided an overview of the center’s ongoing work and long history of collaboration with Germany. Since it was founded more then 7 years ago, CESE has welcomed several researchers from IESE and other research institutes all over Germany and Europe. CESE frequently hosts interns and exchange students from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and the University of Applied Science in Mannheim.

After the introductory presentations Minister-President Beck and his delegation took the time to take a closer look at some of CESE’s current projects. Scientist from our center had prepared posters and demonstrations providing insights into project’s like the DoD Acquisition Best Practice Clearinghouse, our cooperation with NASA on Software Measurement, and our research activities related to safety and security, and the high dependability computing program.

Minister-President Beck (right), Prof. Rombach (middle), and other members of the German delegation in CESE’s class room, listening to the welcome messages of Prof. Cleaveland and Prof. Basili.

After the visit at CESE the delegation headed to further presentations at the University of Maryland followed by a reception and dinner held by the University President, C. D. Mote Jr., in the president’s residence on the College Park campus. As part of the reception at the University a Memorandum of Understanding between the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and the University of Maryland was signed. Since both, Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern and Fraunhofer USA CESE in College Park are closely associated with the signing Universities the MoU will also promote our ongoing and future cooperations.